117 Days
by Versace Frolic
Summary: College students, prostitutes, ninjas, street kids, lovers, underage, girls—you name it; it's in here. An AkuRoku drabble and art series counting down the days to the US release of KH: 358/2, re-uploaded here for posterity.
1. Day 1: Snow

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Summary:** College students, prostitutes, ninjas, street kids, lovers, underage, girls—you name it; it's in here. An AkuRoku drabble and art series counting down the days to the US release of KH: 358/2, re-uploaded here for posterity.

**Rating: **M for adult content and language

**A/N:** This entire project was originally posted over on **117days** at **livejournal**. It's still there, so you can pop over for a look at the art (done by the artist formerly known as **pouikee**) and guest drabbles (by **kokanshu**, or as she's known on ffnet, **hongkongstar**). I actually kinda sorta thought I'd already started re-uploading 117 Days here, but it's definitely not on my list. It was probably pre-deletion/dramatic meltdown of drama. I promise to stagger the updates so it doesn't feel like spam.

Keep in mind that I wrote each drabble AFTER taking in the art drawn for that day, so it's imperative that these two things are viewed in tandem. Don't deprive yourselves of the full experience! That said, please enjoy.

* * *

The prospect of a snow day paradoxically thawed Roxas' otherwise icy, cold exterior and reduced him to bright-eyed, ruddy-cheeked wonder. Running full tilt down a snowy bank at a speed Axel thought looked reckless and _insane_, the blonde shattered the early morning lull with a downpour of laughter.

Axel, though, had a certain mistrust of snow. "It pretends to be something it's not," he explained, finger pointing accusatorially at a snowball bouncing ominously in Roxas' mittened hand. "First it's 'snow,' but in an hour it's _water_. Okay? And _I_ have a problem with deception."

"The snow is not deceiving you, Axel. Didn't you ever take a science class?" Roxas sent the snowball sailing at Axel's head.

Ducking easily, Axel shrugged. "Science? Oh, you mean Satan's Language?"

"Ha _ha_," Roxas said, sending a barrage of snowballs over, one landing squarely on Axel's shoulder.

"Just you watch. In one hour, this is going to be _water_." Eyeing the snow on his shoulder wearily, Axel scowled. "You lying piece of shit." Another snowball hit him on the ass.

"It can't heeear you," Roxas sang, packing another ball between his mittens.

"I REFUSE YOUR DECLARATION OF WAR!" Axel shouted, turning and continuing down the snow bank in a strictly non-hasty, non-panicked way. "I'll have you know that I enjoy my Roxases 1) DRY and 2) PACIFISTIC. Since you fit neither of these criteria, I'll just go have that steaming cup of Hera's nectar, i.e. _coffee_, alone."

The quick crunch of snow under shoes had Axel wincing, anticipating the onslaught of snow as Roxas ran at him. When the cushioned warmth pressed up against his back, Roxas' arms encircling his waist, he was almost surprised. Almost.

"My nose is cold," Roxas said, a small voice pressed into his back.

Turning in the arms holding him, Axel tilted Roxas' chin up. "I can help you with that." Axel watched as the blonde fought a smile, eyelids lowering, lips pursing almost imperceptibly. This is when Axel sucked on his nose. Roxas made a noise of disgust, mittens flying to his face.

"Better?" Axel smirked.

"Who _does_ that?" Roxas asked, rubbing at his nose.

"I've sucked on places far more-"

"Shut it, or I'll play naked in the snow before coming to bed."

"Shutting," Axel said, smirking away behind closed lips.


	2. Day 2: Kiss

"What."

It wasn't a question, not properly. He'd just showed up at the close of a pointless mission, Roxas wandering around like a ghost through the streets awash with gold and amber. A drifting, anchorless thing waving around a huge weapon to keep the darkness at bay. He'd been walking toward the portal when the distinct thud of Axel's shoes caught his attention, a sound he'd listened for and listened for month after month of strange perpetual twilight and a small pile of popsicle sticks. Axel, who was probably supposed to be dead, showing up with the same magnetic presence. He didn't mean to cry then, but wasn't it enough that he'd thought he lost his only friend? That had been enough. The idea that it could happen again...

There'd been chatter and sea salt and a glossing over of events. They'd lost nearly half their numbers, and Roxas was sick. Sick in a coma while Axel did the job he was told to do at Castle Oblivion, waking up from dreams of sunlight and laughter that should've been pleasant except for that hollow, missing feeling he'd get after nightmares. There were no words that could bridge that distance, two months or two years or two seconds of nothing, of silence. It was not okay.

So Roxas woke up in the middle of the night, strayed to watch Kingdom Hearts brighten and swell with the life and love of countless lost. It was sobering to know that he would never be among them, that Axel would never be among them. Despite whatever... things he might think about Axel. His friend.

"Up late?" The voice, thick with sleep, came out of the pitch behind him. But it was not okay, could not be okay, so Roxas answered with the non-feelings he had.

"What."

"Nothing. Just... checking out the hearts of the damned." Axel leaned up against the glass window beside him, arms crossed and staring down at Roxas as his breath frosted the glass. The minutes passed-quiet, heavy-and Axel finally reached down and drew a minute "Hi" in the fog left by Roxas' breath.

"I'm going back to bed," Roxas said, turning.

"Hey," Axel said, hand falling on his shoulder. Roxas resisted the urge to shake the older boy off. So what? Let him talk. It didn't mean anything. Silence, promises that were never made. It's not like Axel _had_ to tell him he was leaving. He'd been sick, anyway, passed out. It wasn't his fault. _But still..._

"You got... taller. Since I last saw you."

"You last saw me five hours ago. We don't grow in five hours." Roxas frowned, felt sturdy defenses giving way beneath him, and pressed his face into Axel's chest. "We don't grow ever."

"Hey," Axel said, touching his hair. "I'm okay."

"I thought you were fucking _dead_," Roxas said, words pressed up against the fabric of Axel's coat, tangling up in impervious threads.

"I... I'm..." Axel's arms were warm around him, hand rubbing between his shoulder blades. Something wet fell against Roxas' cheek, and in a moment of irrational horror, his eyes flew upward, searching for blood.

"Crying," Roxas said, gloved hand reaching up to touch the wet trails running down Axel's face.

"That's impossible." The choked anguish there, swollen and ugly in Axel's voice, made the air unbreathable. Axel nuzzled his hand lightly, impossibly soft, and Roxas crumbled.

"Oh." So his tears, too, were impossible. They didn't cry. Not because they shouldn't; because they _couldn't_. Couldn't cry, couldn't love.

Axel was lifting him up, his legs wrapping around the redhead's waist. This, too, was impossible. Roxas didn't feel this way, _couldn't_ feel this way.

"I w-want you," he breathed into Axel's neck, lips coming away tasting like freshly showered skin and new sweat.

The feeling, it seemed, was mutual, Axel's tongue sliding between his lips, touching him there like sweet, like soft. Roxas ran his hands across Axel's face, a small part of him memorizing how it felt, the give of skin under leather, just in case... in case..


	3. Day 3: Phone Sex

Roxas had fallen asleep some time around one in the morning, trading off dejected stares between his phone and his history homework-a whole lot of silence bordered nicely by a hundred and fifteen photocopied pages from _Japan: A History_. In theory, page after page of meticulous notes about Japanese creation myths should've been at least marginally interesting, drops of ocean and spears and shit while waiting for Axel to call, but instead they served as aborted fairytales, lulling him to sleep and churning strange dreams behind his eyes.

It's not like it was a common occurrence, staying up late and waiting for him to call. Roxas couldn't explain the strange paleness under his eyes ("_Dude, are you on drugs?_") the next day at school, though. Nor could he mention the long, chronic yawning he tried to be discreet about until he yawned into a bite of his sandwich and Olette burst out laughing. He couldn't tell anyone Axel was away on business, twenty-one time zones away selling... soap. Yes, _soap_, and he could never tell anyone _that_. No, Axel was a rock star or a flight attendant or just really ridiculously rich, that's why he was always out of town. Certainly not out half the world away selling luxury bath products that smelled like cake batter. Roxas made sure to hide his stash of delicious smelling soap any time his friends decided to come over.

Twenty-one time zones, a world away with thirteen hours lost between them. Axel tried to call between meetings with buyers, sellers, and production. Axel tried to call between cab rides satay skewers. It was hard sometimes, hearing traffic in the background, Axel babbling about some prawn crackers he was bringing back for him while Roxas attempted to solve a calculus problem by way of telekinesis and plea bargaining with divine beings. Nobody had ever told him that it would be tough, a senior in high school, having an older boyfriend.

His cellphone, clutched in his hand, went off at 3:33am. Blinking away sleep, Roxas squinted at the caller ID. _Son of a bitch_. Axel knew how to count, didn't he? He knew Roxas had to wake up in two and a half hours to go to school while he paraded his ass around Singapore selling _soap_, didn't he? _That son of a bitch_. Huffing, he shoved the phone under a pillow and slammed another one over his face. If Axel _really_ wanted to talk to him, he'd have called at a reasonable hour. When the phone went off again, Roxas hurled a pillow across the room.

Thrusting the phone up against his ear, he hissed, "_What?_"

"Hey, baby." Axel, sounding breathless.

"What the fuck do you want?" On some level Roxas realized it was stupid to scowl into the phone-it's not like Axel could see him-but his face refused to rearrange itself.

"You weren't sleeping, were you? I'm _exhausted_. I've been in meetings since six, and this one guy tried to get me to eat deer penis soup after shaking on a deal. No shit, deer penis _soup_. I was like, hey, buddy, I'll shake your hand-hell, I'll even shake your dick-but I am _not_ eating any fucking deer penis."

Roxas frowned, listening harder to Axel's breathy rambling. "Are you... jacking off?"

"What?" Axel's line went suddenly quiet.

"Are you going somewhere?" Roxas hopped off the bed, bending to collect the pillow he'd thrown and clutching it to his chest. He wasn't sorry. Well, maybe he was a little sorry. It was entirely Axel's fault, his stupid arrogance and his stupid charm and his stupid deer penis delicacies melting away residual annoyance. "You sound out of breath."

"I'm just... y'know. Going to take a nap or something. Still jet-lagged, I guess."

"So," Roxas said, hopping back on his bed and pulling his legs under him. "I talked my parents into letting you come to my graduation. They say you have to wear a hat."

"How sweet and accepting of them. You give them that box of soap yet?"

"Uh." Roxas' eyes darted over to his closet, the box of soap sitting pushed up again the back corner, already open. He just _really_ liked the cake batter ones. "Yeah. They liked it."

"I figured they would. Country clubbers go nuts for this shit. Slap it with an astronomical price tag, and they're all over it like flies on-"

"You _are_ jacking off, aren't you?" He was doing it again; that weird, out of breath thing. After a beat or two of silence, Roxas rolled his eyes. "I have ears, Axel. I know what it sounds like when you're getting off." More silence. "...Or maybe that was some other hot redhead I was fucking."

"Baby, you can't say words like 'fucking' to me right now. My dick is so hard I swear I'll need to get the blood drained."

Roxas smiled into the receiver. "Oh?" Lips turned upward, the smile creeping into his voice.

"You like that, don't you." Axel, breathy again. "You like that you get me hard."

Roxas hummed, fingers tapping against his abdomen. "Maybe."

The breathing was heavier now, and Roxas thought he could hear the quick, furtive movements. "I want it inside you."

Roxas gave a soft moan, testing how it felt in his still bedroom. Wincing at how it sounded insincere, almost theatrical, he slid a hand into his boxers and tried again, a low "nngh" at the back of his throat as his hand slid over his skin, dick hardening in his hands at Axel's whispered "_fuck_." "How do you want me?"

"On top. I want you to bounce on it. Bounce on my cock, Rox."

Roxas had to bite back a snort of laughter, choking on the burst of it in his mouth which, apparently, pleased Axel, the readhead groaning a lusty, "That's it, baby." Who _said_ that? Closing his eyes, cradling the phone between shoulder and ear, Roxas focused on one image-namely Axel's dripping, erect cock-and got to work. There was a slight trick to it, not so much a sliding, but a slow grip and twist, his dick throbbing now. Sinking into the sensation, Roxas dropped his inhibitions. "I wanna fuck you."

"_Fuck_, Roxas, I-"

"Finger yourself." His dick was slick in his hand, pre-come cascading down in tiny rivulets. Axel, writhing beneath him. Axel, sucking his cock like it would save their lives. Axel, taking his load, and then pushing him down and fucking him until he was spineless, all nerves and all sensation, fucked to orgasm, face down on Egyptian cotton. Sticking a finger in his mouth, swirling it around briefly before lifting the band of his boxers and parting the cheeks of his ass, Roxas breathed, "Imagine I'm fucking you. Imagine my dick in your ass."

"F-_fuck_. Are you touching yourself, baby?"

"Yes," he said, breathing labored. If he focused, _really_ focused, then it was Axel's finger in his ass, pushing, searching, and Axel's mouth wrapped around him, warm and thorough and _fuck_, he was close.

"Ah-Axel, I'm-"

Axel made a noise, almost savage in its want, breath curling through gritted teeth. "_Roxas_." His voice grinding over the consonants, and Roxas could imagine him thrusting his long, expressive fingers into his ass, come painting his chest in thick, heavy strokes. He saw Axel, legs spread, inviting, with his fingers buried in his own body, one orgasm away from spanning the world. One more press from shared communion, shared orgasm, shared pure fucking bliss. Once his mind strayed to licking Axel's fingers when he was done-artist's hands sliding in and out of his mouth, his lips reddened, abused-Roxas came, hard, in his hand, finger still pounding savagely into him.

Breath. Breath and want and thousands of miles of distance. Roxas felt oddly pathetic, staring at the come in his hand. Watery, almost. Thin with countless jerking sessions in Axel's absence. "I miss you."

Axel took a deep breath on the opposite end of the world, voice shaky like he'd been crying, but Axel never cried. "I love you, too.


	4. Day 4: The Prince and the Pauper

He flattened his collar again, trying to limit his breathing. The smell of trash, of refuse and rot, would start to chip away at his will in another minute or two, but that would be enough time to close the deal.

"Suck 'n fuck?" The question floated down to Roxas laced with smoke, and he nodded. The redhead was taller than him, features obscured in the cloak of night, the flare of the cigarette he'd provided glowing embers in his eyes with every long inhale. "Benjamin'll do it," the redhead said, shrugging, killing the cigarette with a final drag before tossing it on a pile of spoiling food. Roxas nodded again. He'd brought along a nice round grand, the last trip having cost him three hundred plus on some flamboyant piece of ass, pulling a baggie of coke from, apparently, under his ballsack. Besides, it was the city. It was good to have a cash buffer. Not like he really _needed_ a grand. Not like he wanted to have _that_ much sex. No way. Not Roxas.

New Canaan was a little over an hour away from the city, longer by train. Pastel polos, cargos, button downs-all color-coded in his closet, the wardrobe of a fake, perfect boy with a fake, perfect life. Staunch Republicans, drivers, and dinner at 6:30pm, always an affair with elegant, structured courses. Roxas had a _girlfriend_, a petite debutante with golden laughter who summered in Monaco. He had a _hound_, a stately Whippet appropriately named "Regal." No, not a _dog_; a _hound_. He started learning Latin at four, French after birth since his au pair spoke nothing but. He could play the cello. He hated his life.

Roxas led the redhead down the block, hailing a cab. The cab ride was uncomfortable, silent, and Roxas wouldn't look the other boy in the face, content to stare at his folded hands. Impeccable manners, lowered eyes. When they pulled up at the Waldorf Astoria, the redhead scoffed.

"You rob a bank, kid?"

Roxas opened the door, held it open for the street boy. The redhead stared at him, shrugged, then opened his own door. Roxas smiled faintly, shook his head. "No." He waited a beat, turning over the money in his pocket. The room had been expensive, but it wasn't anything he didn't have. And after last time, the grit of dirt against his back, unnameable things scuffling in the dark while the boy worked him over... no more of that, thanks. If he was going to slum it, at least there could be a compromise. One dirty street boy, one luxury hotel. Compromise.

When Roxas let the boy into the suite, the redhead whistled under his breath. "God _damn_, I feel like a fucking princess." He turned around then, and Roxas, unable to avert his eyes quickly enough, finally saw his face. Strange features and tired, vicious eyes. The hair was even more vivid in the light, body lithe and waif-like in a way that made Roxas think _heroin_. Made Roxas think _addiction_. He was angular, beautiful. "You steal money from your daddy?"

Roxas cleared his throat briefly before speaking. "I'm not a child." He took his coat off, folded it over his arm and offered to take the street boy's. Street boy, whore, prostitute. A dirty fuck. "May I take your coat?"

The redhead laughed in his face. "The name's Axel, kiddo. And no, 'I'm not a child.' I think I can figure out how to hang up a jacket."

Roxas tried not to shrug, shrugging was rude, and he entered the adjoining room, sliding his slacks off and climbing on the bed. Watching Axel walk toward him-pulling his belt from the loops of his pants, undoing the closure on his jeans-made his heart pound in his mouth.

"Don't waste any time, do you?" Roxas handed him the folded hundred dollar bill, a fifty tucked inside. He knew the redhead wouldn't check the amount until later. "Not much of a talker, are you?" Roxas took a breath and slid his briefs off. Axel smirked. "Can I get a name at least?"

"R-" a pause, unsure, "Richard."

"Cute," Axel said, palming his erection. "Little richie rich Richard." Axel's tongue traced the outlines of his ear, breath floating across his skin and pulling up chills from his blood. "Well, _Richard_. Thanks for the effort. I appreciate it."

Roxas was abruptly disgusted. Why thank him? He was paying to have sex. Paying to keep his secret a secret, paying to revel in the touch of someone he wanted. Paying with his body, with his sanity, with his life in measured doses. There was no thanks involved. Shame and lust, yes. Roxas plucked impatiently at the band of Axel's briefs.

Later, after he came in Axel's mouth, memorizing the burn of toxic green irises as he slid in and out of that hot, slick mouth, fistful of red hair in his hand, Roxas wondered how he could ask Axel to say the night without paying for another two hours. They would sleep, and in the morning, brunch. After Axel fucked him while running a thumb over his mouth, the groves of his fingertips tracing the seam of his lips and dipping in, making him suck, Roxas thought about pitching the idea-uncomplicated sleep where they didn't even have to touch. Though it would be nice, please. Say yes, please.

But when the clock hit midnight, Axel sat up, hopping off the bed. Roxas watched him dress, jumping up a little to get his tight jeans situated on his hips. The movement was cute, Roxas thought. Endearing. Axel was sniffing erratically, scratching at his arms. "Thanks, kid."

"You don't... have to thank me." Roxas managed, forlorn already. It seemed to get better in his head all the time. One day there would be someone who would want something more. There would be someone who would really want him, not just the money.

Axel stared at him, shrugged, and walked out. It was a long time before Roxas found the peace to sleep


	5. Day 5: Reconnaissance

In theory, all Axel had to do was show up. The rest, the Superior assured him, would follow. It was _Roxas_, after all. Blonde with a bad attitude and a big sword... thing. It was cake city, duck soup, no sweat at all. He should've known there would be trouble when, casing the kid from within a crowd, blue eyes were drawn to him like he was wearing coat of particularly magnetic material. Axel had panicked, turned a corner and portaled away. Sure, Roxas was supposed to recognize him, but that level of intensity felt so _sociopathic_.

The next time, despite his precautions, it was even worse. Face stuck in a novel about sparkly vampires, Axel watched the train station courtyard, periodically glancing over his shoulder to check the time. They played kickball up here every afternoon at two until the guards chased them away, and he was determined to use that time pulling Roxas apart idiosyncrasy by idiosyncrasy, looking for an in. The trick to manipulation was slipping past defenses. Turning a page, Axel felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Aren't you in Organization XIII?" Roxas stood above him, his face unreadable.

"Uhhh," Axel offered, hands rising in a show of defeat. This certainly wasn't in the gameplan. "You caught me?"

To Axel's great dismay, a particularly brutal smile erupted on the blonde's face. "_Awesome_. I thought I recognized you from somewhere." Producing a CD and a marker, Roxas held them out. "Think I could get an autograph?"

Standing, accidentally dropping his book over the clock tower in the process-Roxas, thankfully, hadn't noticed-Axel scrawled something illegible on the cover of the CD while Roxas gushed about the drum solo on the third track, air drumming a little and smiling all over his face. This, Axel noted, would be the opportune time to grab the kid and portal home. But it couldn't hurt, could it? Roxas had never been this animated before, and never about _him_. Roxas was finishing a long-winded rant on the lyrics of their last record, gesticulating madly, when Axel noticed the blonde's hands were balled tight, knuckles white against the skin. This really meant something to him.

"And, really, you guys like _saved_ my _life_." Roxas' eyes were shining with fanboyish emotion, the scent of something a little more than hope coming off his breath. Axel felt his mouth grinning, and when Roxas looked down, color creeping into his cheeks, there was a definite thought of, _Fuck this_, before Axel took a step closer.

"That's very generous of you." His hand sliding under a chin, lifting. Roxas had always been this cute, but it was so much easier to disregard when he carried a rain cloud around with him. This open, eager Roxas was so different. Corruptible.

"Thanks," Roxas squeaked, cheek red against Axel's hand.

"Why don't you meet me here tomorrow? I'll show you how to play guitar."

It would've been flawless except for the part where, according to Roxas, they didn't even _have_ a guitar player. Axel apparently played the saxophone. See, this was why reconnaissance was so important. Glossing over his bullshit, Axel covered by saying Roxas had the hands for guitar, anyway. Fingers running over Roxas' splayed digits, a look of airy unconcern on the blonde's face, Axel knew he was in the clear.

Three sitar lessons from Demyx later, and Axel was getting his first blowjob.

"Why do _I_ need to take my clothes off, too?" Roxas fiddled with the button of his pants, unconvinced.

"Enhances the experience," Axel breathed, reaching over to help get those damn pants off already. Axel conveniently forgot to mention that being naked statistically improved the chances of them having sex by approximately 33%. The Superior had been getting antsy, threatening hellfire and brimstone, but in one more date, chances of having sex with Roxas skyrocketed to 73%. And Axel had always been a man of opportunity


	6. Day 6: High School Graduation

The bassline threatened the very fabric of reality. He'd always had this thing about walking around with music playing; felt like he was walking in time to the beat, hips swaying with the tempo. It was loud enough, fortunately, to drown out any rational thought. The bassline and the beer, though whoever decided Stella was a good choice for a keg must have been on crack. He was on his third red Solo cup, and the people singing "Welcome to the Jungle" lyrics at him had reduced to a slight hum, randomized annoying bees polluting his line of sight. Where _was_ that kid? He'd been to enough parties by now to figure out where the jocks would hang, but the soccer team en masse in the kitchen, playing beer pong on the marble countertop, didn't boast the object of his search, though his superstar brother was there, loaded, hanging all over that weird drama kid. Wasn't he straight? The thoughts slid easily from his mind as he made his way out the back door, headed for the pool. The pool, though, would be a bad choice. The pool was forever populated by chicks in pathetic excuses for bikinis, slurring and slobbering all over each other. No, if Roxas was at the pool, then he was definitely straight. Probably feeling up a nice pair of tits, catching a hard on in 80 degree water. Dejected, Axel downed the rest of his Stella, tossing the cup on the ground. This was when he noticed the treehouse.

The treehouse, that was _perfect_. Childhood nostalgia, social shunner. If Roxas was in the _treehouse_, then Axel had a chance. Climbing up the rungs, trying to avoid splinters on the wooden slats, he sent out a silent plea to the universe: just this one time, let shit work out, please. Aiming for nonchalant, he popped through the opening like he lived there. He had to fight back the urge to proclaim his success as he found Roxas leaned up against the back wall, twirling his graduation tassel in his hand.

"Feels cheap, doesn't it?"

Roxas glanced up, shrugged, and stuffed the tassel in his pocket. "I guess."

Climbing the rest of the way in and shoving up against a corner with a thud that made him wince internally—just _break_ the goddamn thing, why don't you—Axel tried to play it as cool as possible. The first words he'd ever spoken to Roxas, golden boy Roxas, and it was practically a sentence fragment. _Fuck_. "The rest of your team is getting shitfaced inside," he said conversationally. He'd pegged Roxas for a talker, spotlight hog of whatever circle he ran around in, forever telling some epic story about a nice assist he pulled off, or banging a chick in the back of the bus after an away game. Apparently, he was wrong.

"Not my scene," Roxas said, scratching at the dirt on the floor.

"Your brother seems to be enjoying himself." If you could call being drunk and feeling up the star of the school play "enjoying" yourself.

"Yeah, well. That's Sora." A wry little smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Maybe you'd be more interested in talking to him," Roxas said pointedly, staring at the exit.

"Nah," Axel said, hands shaking now. He was blowing it, wasn't he? Three years of adoration, lurking around outside the locker room, and he was throwing it in the fucking trash. If, transferring in as a sophomore, someone told him he'd fall in love with the brother of the high school heartthrob, he'd have laughed in their faces before fucking them up, tossing a can of garbage over them when he was finished. No way, resident fuck up have a crush on the second most popular kid in the entire town, let alone high school? No. Didn't happen.

Except it _had_.

"Axel, right?" Roxas asked, and Axel felt a surge of joy. He _knew_ his _name_. He actually knew his fucking name!

"Don't wear it out," he said idiotically, wanting to grab the words out of existence.

"You really choke a teacher at your last school?"

Ah, the Teacher Choking Incident. Everyone always conveniently forgot that the teacher in question, a twenty-four year old hotshot History guy newly added to the staff, was fucking Axel at the time. He'd been sixteen. "Basically."

Roxas' eyebrows rose up, a slight smile on his face. "Basically?"

"Well, _basically_, the story is..." And Axel went on. Long after the party was broken up by the cops, after they waited out the drama and snuck away to a 7-11 and he bought Roxas a cherry Slurpee and some Corn Nuts, after they sat in the parking lot and talked until Roxas got a call from his mom, threatening him with castration, Axel talked to Roxas. And Roxas _laughed_. He asked for more, he nudged and gasped and rolled his eyes in all the right places.

"If I don't get home in ten minutes, she'll serve me for dinner tomorrow. It's the curse of having a brother. If he gets home without me, we're both fucked."

Axel smiled, wishing the night would never fucking end. "Well. I guess I'll see you around, huh?"

Roxas smiled strangely, a little wrinkle between his eyes. "That it? You keep me out the entire night, and the best I get from Bad Boy Extraordinaire is, 'See ya around?'"

"I guess I could take you around back and dry fuck you, but I'd kinda like to do this again sometime. If you, y'know, aren't going away to college or something." Axel crossed his fingers and squeezed tight.

"I'll settle for your number." Hopping on a parking stub, Roxas narrowed his eyes a little. "And a kiss." Demanding little brat, wasn't he? Axel thought he might expire from sheer fucking ecstasy.

Kissing Roxas, after three years of dutiful stalking, was like solving a really fucking hard math problem. Sight and sound fell away, reality swirling into a murky nothing around them. Finally, after combining like terms and putting shit in brackets, _finally _he had the equation balanced, could see it for what it was, all symmetry and sense. And it was perfect—soft lips against his, a slip of tongue—_perfect._


	7. Day 7: The Idealism of Youth

What was important was that they were happy. Past the way the water was forever running out of heat, past the way the bed still smelled faintly of blood and the sidewalk they pulled it from, arguing with Salvation Army for their prize on the corner of 86th and—"We're fucking needy!"—past the candlelight and hunger pains, they were happy. So maybe Axel got paid in chump change, piercing various appendages of preteens shitting their parents' money while enduring the exhaustive sterile precautions and ambient techno bullshit the girl at the counter liked to filter over the PA. Maybe Roxas felt like screaming at the deli customers insisting he got their orders wrong—"Pastrami on rye my _ass_!"—asking for extra pickles while he ran a slicer and stirred macaroni and answered the phone like he had two heads and eight hands, all the while trying to justify killing his soul for money he could make in an hour, tops, on the street. Nobody said it would be easy, skipping town at nineteen and sixteen with starry, starry eyes. They did what they had to. To eat, to live. Prying loose plywood and making due in that house for a full month before they both found jobs and saved enough to get a place, stuffing themselves into closets when realtors came. To eat, to live. Because when Axel brought Roxas a half eaten package of bratwurst retrieved from a park trash can just off of Broadway, Roxas crying before picking the ants off and devouring the greasy, slightly spoiled food, it hurt too fucking much. What was important was that now, three years after their exodus, they were happy.

Right?

Axel wandered in around eleven, undressing right in the entry way to their tiny studio. Six hundred a month, no utilities, no pets—Axel looking at Roxas concernedly, "Think they'll let me keep you?"—as if two people shitting where they sleep wasn't enough. Roxas was on the bed, hands folded across his stomach.

"Pierced a clit today. Fun stuff," Axel said, reaching into their flickering fridge and pulling out a package of baloney and peeling off a slice, rolling it neatly and demolishing three before he brought over a rolled piece to Roxas. "You okay?"

"Yep." In this case, "yep" meant that Roxas called in sick at the deli and stood around on corners all day. Suck four dicks at fifty a pop, and you almost have your share of the month's rent in an hour. Do it for three hours, and you have his share, too. Trading in killing your soul with meat and cheese for killing your soul with meat and come, except one pays a hell of a lot better. Which do you choose? To eat, to live. He's always so hungry, and they never buy anything they don't need. You don't need bread, just the meat. You don't need to make a salad to eat some lettuce. Meat, cheese, vegetables, fruit, and sometimes, when the blues of Roxas' eyes got darker, Axel bought cereal they'd eat with their hands. They didn't own bowls. They never bought milk. Roxas didn't like to watch Axel eat because it hurt. It hadn't always hurt.

"I think we need cereal." Axel crawled on the bed, hands and arms finding ports against Roxas' body; ships, seas, and shores. Axel was older now, twenty-two on paper, but it wasn't hard to remember fucking in the bathroom, Roxas biting through the pads of his fingers, when he was nineteen and sneaking in through the fence out past the farthest backstop. They were bad, bad boys.

"Yes, please," Roxas said. Because Axel could never know he was tricking again. Because he did this for _them_, and he never let anyone touch him, laying out simple rules: my mouth, your cock; you touch, I'm out. Wrapping a leg around Axel, hand running up to tangle in strands of hair, he tried to forget laying just like this, out of their minds on H. Laying like this at the twenty yard line at three in the morning, come pooling out of his ass because Axel dropped the condom on the wet grass. Laying like this in his bed, right before it had all gone to hell. "Love you," Roxas murmured, eyes drifting shut. In the morning, there would be cereal. And soon, milk. Soon, bread. He'd add money to the box, every day just a little. Later, new clothes. Later, a car. A house. A ring.

Axel sighed, stillness sneaking into his limbs as he relaxed against the boy in his arms. His hands smelled like disinfectant, his stomach gnawed at his insides, but how could he be anything but perfect? He had his Roxas, his little bad boy in black grinding on the bottom row of the bleachers. Better a meal of herbs. Because what was important was that they were happy.

Right?


	8. Day 8: The Porcelain God

The first thing Roxas was aware of, staring through his lashes at the red glare of 2:56am, was the cats mating. What else could be making such awful, ear-shattering noise? The second thing Roxas was aware of was how the mating cats sounded suspiciously like a certain redheaded enigma, his floundering subconscious supplying him with the memory of Axel, pitcher of beer in hand, butchering a Journey song during Karaoke Night at Q's with the express aim of making sure Roxas and anyone within earshot never stopped believing. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he kicked the sheets from his body and stumbled toward the window. The sight that he was met with was nothing short of horrific.

Axel, barefoot and in his underwear with several drink umbrellas in his hair, shouting the words to U2's "With or Without You." On his knees, no less. Roxas didn't know whether to phone the authorities or throw a shoe at Axel's face.

"Shhh," Roxas hissed, flapping a hand. To Axel, this looked like Roxas was chasing away a fly or having some bizarre seizure. Instead of laughing, he sang even louder.

"I CAN'T LIIIIVE WITH OR WITHOUUUT YOUUU! HOOOOO! HOOOOO!" Axel stretched his arms wide, and Roxas was pretty sure his eyes were closed, lost in the bliss of complete and total tone deaf abandon. Lights were winking on across the quad, curtains pulling aside to witness the strange, partially naked boy.

"Axel!" Roxas hissed. Sometimes it was hard for Roxas to remember why he thought he was secretly in love with his best friend. Obnoxious, arrogant, prone to bouts of public drunkenness... there was so much to abhor.

"Let me inside! I have a wealth of knowledge to impart to you, young padawan!"

There was distinct laughter from the dumb bitches next door. Roxas made a mental note to remember to leave the seat up the next time he used the communal bathroom. "You have a key, jackass."

"Eh? What's that?" Axel actually had a hand up to his ear. "Come again? Didn't quite catch that."

Sighing, Roxas buried his face in his hands. "You have a key, _master_."

"Really? 'Kay, BRB." A millisecond later, Axel was back under the window. "Hey, padawan! I think the key is in my pants!"

"Along with your dignity," Roxas grumbled under his breath, throwing on a pair of shorts to let the loudmouth in.

"Sexy, sexy," Axel said when Roxas opened the door, eyeing the blonde's chest. "Been working out? I could fry eggs on those abs, hot stuff."

Inside, Roxas died of joy. In reality, he scowled, crossing his arms. "You smell like a camel. Get your ass in here."

Axel smiled lecherously and did his best to saunter in, nearly walking into the doorjamb before swaying to the right and sailing through the door, tripping over his feet. Roxas tried to catch him, spreading his arms wide. They both ended up on the floor. Just as Roxas processed the fact that Axel was—oh _god—_on _top_ of him, Axel paled and sat up.

"Gunna be sick." The redhead scampered down the hall, puking a little on the bathroom door before actually making it inside. Roxas glared at the front of his shorts, had a short and passionate pep talk with himself about the eighty-seven different kinds of douchebag Axel was, and why he should stop feeling in love with him, before soldiering through the communal bathroom door. Axel looked up from the toilet morosely, warbling almost, and Roxas crumbled.

"Shit, Ax," he said, pulling a hand towel from a storage unit and handing it over to the other boy. "What the hell happened to your pants?"

Axel took the towel and promptly vomited again. When he spoke, his voice echoed in the recesses of the toilet bowl. "I never want to hear the word 'tequila' again. Got that? Never." Axel threw up again, a rising crescendo that almost sounded like the prelude to a shout.

"And your pants?" Roxas pressed, stroking Axel's hair. It was almost... nice. Pleasant. Except for the whole puking thing.

"Someone pissed on them," Axel moaned, attempting to shake the lid of the toilet in anguish.

"Who?"

"...Well, okay. It was me." Roxas' laugh was cut short when Axel suddenly whipped around, his bleary eyes focusing on the blonde before he spoke in slurred, feverish speech. "I may never recover. I saw this chick with, no shit, the _biggest tits_ I have ever seen in my _entire life_. So I walked over and was like, 'Can I shake my face between your tits?' You know, like a stripper, and she got all pissed off and told me to suck my own dick." Roxas coughed a little, pressing his hand hard to his mouth. "So I was like 'Pffft, peace' and started taking shots to appease my pain, then the next thing you know, I'm here."

"It's okay," Roxas said, patting Axel's shoulder. The pat turned into a stroke, the stroke into a caress. Axel wouldn't remember in the morning. "I would let you shake your face between my tits.


	9. Day 9: I'm on a Boat

"This is champagne?" Axel sipped at the flute suspiciously. "Tastes like fancy piss."

"Probably is," Roxas said, shrugging. Alaska was hotter than he thought it should be. After Axel won the tickets on some morning radio show, answering a weird question about pop culture trivia involving spoof bands and Saturday Night Live, Roxas thought he was kidding when the other boy told him to bring flip flops and sunglasses.

"Dude, I feel like a total pimp." Axel dipped a jumbo prawn in cocktail sauce, taking care not to drip on his suit.

"Why are we dressed like this, again?" Roxas kept taking off his sunglasses to check his hair in the reflection. "And I'm pretty sure pimps like... fuck bitches and snort coke all day."

"Bitches are back in the suite. Coke is stashed behind the painting of little naked babies with wings on the third deck."

"Cherubs," Roxas said, lifting a sauce laden prawn into his mouth. "You hid coke behind the cherubs."

"Are you fucking serious? Those fat babies are cherubs?" Axel downed the rest of the champagne and straightened his bow tie. "Gross. I thought they were hotter. And we're dressed like this because it's 'formal night' and we have to take pictures with the captain."

"But the captain is weird. I think he thinks he's like... a rapper, or something. Did you see the necklaces he was wearing?"

"I think you mean his 'ice,' Rox."

"Don't say that," Roxas said, slouching farther down in his lounge chair.

"I gotsta get me some ice, yo. Get my hair did, buy a couple Glocks." Axel slid another prawn into his mouth. "I'm on a _boat_, muthafucka. Just call me 'Ax-sizzle.'"

"Were you born retarded, or did someone assault you as a child?"

"Fool, you better check yo'self."

"Please. Stop. You are paining me in my heart." Roxas accepted a bottle of Pellegrino graciously. "But, seriously, thanks for taking me, man. This beats the hell out of Kinko's with Xion for the summer."

"Don't mention it, Rox-sizzle."

Later, on the top deck for their "formal portrait" with the captain, Axel insisted on doing an approximation of the crip walk, the captain cheering him on with a hand bob. Roxas debated throwing himself overboard


	10. Day 10: Going Away to College

The day wound down around them faster than Axel thought was possible, watching the sun arc over the sky and drop away to some place behind the sea, ripping open heaven in its descent. To unwind time, disentangle the threads and pull at the fabric of passage... it was something Axel couldn't do. He wasn't strong enough, not special enough, not magic. The sunset was nice, was beautiful. He would trade every sunset he'd ever seen, he'd ever see, for just one more day. The day began, the day was ending, and he would lose Roxas by the end of it.

Roxas in the morning had never been quite so heartbreaking, the golden, soft dawn falling over him like a lost halo. In the morning, asleep, next to Axel. Right where he should be. Axel untangled his limbs from the younger boy and went to the bathroom, breath coming haltingly. Watching yourself cry in the mirror, asking yourself what you can do to change the outcome. How to make him stay. How to stop time. A series of questions concerning impossibility, concerning inevitability.

There had been the gentle rousing after Axel waited for his eyes to go back to normal, a steady slide of his palm over a calf, a trickle of fingers over a hip, and the curling hand around his face, thumb brushing cheekbone until Roxas opened his eyes. The walk to the beach, Roxas' shoulder fitting perfectly into his ribs, was all stumble and step, a bag of stolen youth bouncing at Axel's side. Candy, primarily, and two packs of cigarettes. One perfect plum. A bottle of water. The plan was to sit on the dock until one of them couldn't stand it anymore. No cellphones, no sunblock, and just the bare essentials Axel needed for presentability: clothes, composure. Pressing pieces of sugar past their lips, watching Roxas' mouth over and over again. A lick, a suck, lips staining. It was harder than they'd anticipated to light cigarettes in the brush of ocean air, predisposed to silence and exhalation. When Axel pulled out the plum, Roxas cried a little.

"I'll call you every day." Folded arms pillowing his face, laying on his stomach. Sometimes just the sound of Roxas' voice could make Axel smile. Heard at a distance, from another room, and his lips would turn up. Because, _Roxas_.

"Tch, like that's even debatable." He crossed his hands over his face, told himself to suck it the hell up. He wouldn't be like this. He wouldn't make Roxas feel guilty for doing what you do after you finish high school. That's what you do; you go to college. He couldn't take it personally. There was nothing to take at all. He could feel Roxas' eyes on his hips, torso bare with his shirt ridden up.

"You promised you wouldn't be mad."

"I'm not _mad_." Not at Roxas, anyway. At himself, yes. Because he was too weak to stop time. Because he didn't know how to make Roxas want to stay. _I'm not mad; I'm fucking devastated._. "It's not like you'll never be back. People graduate."

"Yeah," Roxas said. Axel heard the other boy's stomach grumble, a distinct cry for real sustenance. Time was up, then. The setting sun flat on the horizon, a last wink, illusory waving. Time was up.

Axel tried to keep it out of his voice. "Time's your flight?"

"Six." They'd already talked about the part where Axel couldn't be at the airport. He just couldn't. Watching Roxas disappear, out of reach, where he couldn't follow. No, he couldn't. He just _couldn't_.

He was breaking apart, the inside of his mouth aching with words he shouldn't say. "I don't want you to go." _I would stop the sun._

"I know."

They picked themselves up as the dock began to disappear in the dark. Before Roxas stepped out of reach, Axel pulled him close, closed his eyes. He was too weak, not magic. This was the only piece of eternity he'd ever have: Roxas, hungry in his hands, smelling of sweet, of smoke, of sun, of sea, and poured against him. He pressed the sight, the sound, the sense into his mind. The structure, a monument to what it means to be in fucking _love_ with some boy, some blonde kid who tried to make you read his mind, who would never do what you wanted, who smoked too much, and was too good at Chemistry for his own fucking good. When it was all there in his head—solid, sure—Axel let go.


	11. Day 11: The Body of Christ

He was almost afraid to open the door, gentle strains of piano pushing between the space and hanging accusatorially around his shoulders and hands. With typical Axel gusto, he sucked in a breath, put on a brave face, and all but kicked in the door. The music dropped off abruptly, Roxas going still behind the keyboard.

"Get out."

"Hey, listen, I-"

"Get _the fuck_ out."

So maybe he shouldn't have been drinking. The drinking and driving to Roxas' place was definitely not something he should've been doing, and when he showed up, wasted, Roxas was furious.

"You trying to _kill_ yourself?"

"You wrote me a song. You think I'm gunna let you write me a _song_ and then not be here to listen to it?" It's like he forgot what personal space meant when he was drunk, his hands pulling Roxas by the waist, pressing his face close. Why did he get like this? His best-friend on the face of the planet and he...

"You fight with her again?" Roxas, all hands off and quiet like he was managing something. _Taking care_ of something, like Axel was an idiot and needed watching.

"Gives a shit if I did? That fucking bitch. She's only good for sucking cock. Doesn't need _mine_." His fingers toying with the tips of Roxas' hair.

"You're drunk, Axel." Roxas, sounding tired of this shit all the time, like Axel was a fuck up and everyone was tired of him, tired of this shit all the time like an approaching train you can't stop; a trainwreck, a barreling, breakneck disaster.

"So?" Why did he get like this? Roxas looked good enough to devour, good enough to run his hands over like testing the water. And when he'd tested it, a dip of tongue after a night of purposeful oblivion, Roxas had punched him in the face.

"I _said_ get out." Roxas stood, ready to push Axel out of the practice room. He wouldn't shout. If he shouted, someone would come to discover the source of the commotion. Maybe the pastor would. Axel noticed he was wearing the cross again, tiny and silver around his neck.

"I was drunk. It wasn't anything." Because Axel was straight, because he had a girlfriend. Because Roxas was a good Christian. He led _worship_. Played the fucking keyboard and sang Jesus songs and asked Axel to pray with him all the time. Like it would solve something. Like it could save him. But it was _Roxas_, so Axel humored him. He even went to church on Wednesday nights, sat next to his best-friend and scribbled notes in the margins of his bible until Roxas smiled.

"I can't be friends with you if you're like that," Roxas said, crossing his arms. The glare was infuriating.

"But you can be friends with a drunk, tattooed fuck up punk with a black eye like I've been in a bar fight?" Roxas was wearing his hoodie, one of many forever forgotten at Roxas' house when Axel spent the night. It was just like...

"That's different, Axel." Roxas bit his lip like he was about to apologize for the punch, but no apology came. It was Axel's divine retribution, apparently. You come on to boys and you get punched in the face. You come on to your best-friend and you lose the best thing in your entire life, past parties and chicks and trust funds that mature when you turn eighteen in four weeks. Vast sums of money and gorgeous women and an upstream deal after his second record and no Roxas? No thanks.

"I know. It's nothing. I swear, dude. I was just wasted." But not wasted enough to crash his car. Not wasted enough to forget where Roxas lived. Not wasted enough to not leave his phone in the glove compartment just in case Tifa called. Not wasted enough to not want to kiss that mouth, hours spent studying the lines of it, the delicate whisper of fuzz only visible close, an inch from his best friend's face. Kissing close. "I swear to God.


	12. Day 12: Red Handed

There was one incontrovertible truth, tying his laces at record speed while trying to figure out where he'd thrown his shirt the night before: Roxas was going to fucking _kill_ Axel. It was one thing to tempt him with cheesy cult classics and a package of Red Vines harder than a) something naughty, or b) rock in order to get Roxas into his house. It was another thing entirely to tell Roxas his parents were "out" in hopes of assuaging the blonde's irrational fear of small talk.

"Where's my shirt, you prick?" The gritted teeth were supposed to be his show of anger and annoyance. Instead it sounded like Roxas had a kind of funny speech impediment. "You said they were _out_."

Axel, far beyond amused while watching his frantic movements from on the bed, just skin under the covers, grinned. "They were. Now they're back. The wonders of jobs, huh? You go in, you come back. Once you hit puberty and they let you have a job, I'm sure you'll understand."

"The only thing needing to be understood is that I am kicking your fucking ass." Roxas hurled the covers over Axel as he all but dove under the bed to look for his shirt, though how it could've ended up under there defied even Axel's logic. With only a couple random socks, some porn, and, mysteriously, a pie underneath the bed, Roxas rolled out. Noticing his shoe laces were in fact tied to each other, he hastily retied them.

"You know..." Axel said, crawling to the foot of the bed and leering at Roxas' looping hands. "You _could_ just come back to bed."

"I'm gunna fucking-"

"I'm serious, baby. Hop under the covers, put that pout to work. Or," Axel said, all lascivious grin and narrowed eyes, "maybe all that cock I sucked last night was just a waste of time?" Axel drew his bottom lip into his mouth, letting it slide out slowly between his teeth, glistening with spit. "A little reciprocity never hurt anyone. And I _know_ you enjoyed it."

Roxas blushed furiously, the line of his shoulders dropping as his body relaxed, arms falling to his side. "If they catch me in here, they'll kick you out." But he _had_ enjoyed it, Axel's mouth accommodating him like he was born to suck his cock. Rising to his feet, faintly nervous, Roxas moved toward the bed. "Don't you remember what happened last time?"

Axel, eyes bright like he'd just hit the jackpot, reached for the front of Roxas' pants. Last time involved Roxas mid-orgasm, hands pressing down on Axel's chest as he rocked against him, grinding their bodies together in what had to have been the best sex Axel could ever remember. On the "Fff" of an elongated "fuck," come spilling out on to Axel's chest, Axel's mother had walked in, followed shortly by his father. Apparently archaeologists had the luxury of keeping capricious schedules, and the two of them arrived a full week early. But Roxas couldn't just _stop _having the third best orgasm of his life (the second pressed up against a sink in a museum bathroom, Axel's one hand of thin, artist's fingers pushing up into him while the other hand jacked him off, Axel's lips on his neck while both of them watched in the spotless mirror; the first in a glass elevator belonging to a high rise downtown, watching the world drift by as Axel's fingers thrust into him while his mouth slid mercilessly over his cock, the sensation of falling akin to flying as he came so hard his legs turned to nothing beneath him—both times Axel had to carry him out). Axel's father was furious, his mother disappointed and embarrassed. Sex, they said, would just not be happening under their own roof. Axel, genius of geniuses, thought it would be wise to mention all the sex his parents were having, voicing his concerns about the double standard. Roxas was lucky to escape with his life (and dick) intact.

"But I want you." For Axel, this was enough. Uncomplicated, straightforward. If there were consequences, they were so insignificant to him that they might as well have been non-existent. If Axel wanted to suck cock, then Axel would suck cock. "My parents can fuck themselves."

"If you become a degenerate vagabond, my parents won't let me see you anymore." Roxas shivered as he slid toward the back of Axel's throat, his shoes still on, laces tied to each other.

"That," Axel said, running his tongue along the underside, "is a definition I already half-fulfill, and a risk I'm willing to take."

When the slam of a car door came, Roxas flinched so hard that Axel gagged. Laughing, kissing, smearing their mouths with pre-come, Axel shoved him in the closet. All the degeneracy must've been wearing off on him since Roxas jacked off, peering through the wooden slats, for the entire twenty minutes Axel's parents rambled to him about finding the remains of some weird ass shark. When they invited Axel to brunch, Roxas nearly moaned in protest. Axel, the smug bastard, spent a good five minutes debating on whether or not he should go before declining, saying something about catching up on some reading.

"Reading, huh?" Roxas said, pushing open the closet door after his parents were safely out of the driveway. Axel smirked at him. "If you went with them, I would've burned down your house. And then jizzed on the embers."

"How perfectly obscene of you," Axel said, pulling Roxas onto the bed


	13. Day 13: Backfire

The deal was that it was only supposed to last for three hours. Three hours was more than enough time to spend jaunting around town and participating in activities boasting various levels of debauchery. By the end of the fifth hour, Axel was ready to cut off his newly formed tits.

"I would probably kill you if I didn't have a problem with necrophilia."

"I'm touched," Roxas said, flipping to the next page. At this point, he was hoping for a spell that might change them into cats or highly sentient socks or something. It's not like he thought any of the spells would actually _work_. It was a Thursday, and there's never anything good to do on a Thursday except raid the evidence room. Maleficent's Book of Evil Spells seemed like a perfectly good way to pass the time, and biological transmogrification seemed like a harmless, completely non-evil, diversion. Roxas should've known. The spells were _supposed_ to be evil. And now he had tits.

"It's not so bad," Roxas said, fanning through a couple more pages—a love potion that sounded like the envy of homicidally-inclined spurned lovers everywhere and a spell for disappearing acne on your face, only to have it reappear on your arch enemy's _back_. Backne. So evil. "We could try having sex."

"Eating pussy is only two notches above necrophilia," Axel said moodily, flicking one of his nipples. "I like dicks. I like _my_ dick. God, being a girl _sucks_. What if we're like this forever?"

"I'm pretty sure girls have sex with dicks, too."

Axel's eyes suddenly dilated. "Oh my god. I could _bleed_ from my _vagina_."

"I think you're PMSing, dude," Roxas said. "At least the dress looks nice on you. Accentuates your figure. _I_ look like a hooker." After the biological transmogrification was complete, the two found themselves in sets of magical (evil) clothes.

"Y'know," Axel said, fingering his hemline. "Maybe we need like... a pumpkin and a couple mice. Some glass shoes. A big ass clock at 11:59."

"...You think we're Cinderella?"

"Yes, we're both collectively Cinderella," Axel scoffed, inspecting his nail beds. "No, smartass. _I'm_ clearly the Cinderella. Observe my dress: clever stitching by clever mouse hands. _You_, however, are a lesser princess." Axel studied Roxas appraisingly. "You're Pocahontas."

"Fuck you."

"I'm serious! Cute little feather headband. A raccoon sidekick. When I get my dick back, I'm going to find you a politically incorrect Indian squaw outfit and walk around with a musket. I'll be your John Smith." Axel leaned over and ran a hand down the inside of Roxas' left thigh. "You can ride my massive boat to the new world.


	14. Day 14: Math Homework

Axel liked it when Roxas was between his legs, but this whole seething with anger thing wasn't working for him. The space seemed to bend around the blonde on his knees in front of him while Roxas amassed dangerous amounts of fury.

"What," Roxas pointed, "the fuck is this shit? I thought you wanted help with your _math homework_, not a lesson on how to have a fucking _brain_."

Axel, already lamenting his rapidly diminishing chances of receiving head tonight, was appropriately apologetic. "I guess I wasn't paying attention on the day that they-"

"What," Roxas interrupted, waving around the pencil clutched in his hand like he'd throw it at Axel's face, "on the day they handed out _brains_? I can't even read your chicken scrawls. There's no way I can save this."

"Low blow, Rox," Axel said, crossing his arms and dropping his eyes. _Score_. Nine times out of ten, Roxas would melt if he played the pity card. "Can we keep the name-calling to a minimum, please."

"Chicken scrawl is not a-"

"OH, SURE. YEAH. Let's just downplay the fact that I'm practically poultry. Chickens, sometimes _roosters_. Roosters, who have those funny red things on their heads." Axel touched his hair in what he hoped was self-conscious disgust. "As if my life didn't suck enough, now I'm Axel the Rooster who Sucks at Math. I might as well just kill myself now.

Roxas made a funny strangled noise that might have been poorly concealed laughter, then turned to face the older boy. Roxas trailed the pencil over the insides of Axel's thighs, sighing. "It's too bad you're a rooster now. The math thing I can forgive," he paused, eyes narrowing, "even if it's a fucking miracle you're even in college. But roosters have all the wrong anatomy." Roxas raised his eyes, the tip of the pencil pressed into the center of Axel's crotch.

_Axel: 1, Roxas: -80,000,000._ "You're just saying that so I don't join a circus or live on a farm or something." Axel picked a piece of lint off his pants and delicately placed it on one of Roxas' spikes. "Or so you don't go to jail for engaging in sex acts with an animal."

"I know what you're doing," Roxas said suddenly, pressing the pencil more firmly into Axel's crotch. "And I'm not going to suck your dick because I'm angry at you for sucking at math. See? That's Axel logic. If you had _real_ logic, you'd be able to do this, and you could've had a BJ two hours ago."

Axel sighed, defeated. "Just do it for me, and I promise to do your laundry and buy you candy for the next two weeks."

Roxas smiled and turned back toward the paper. He paused with the pencil hovering over a problem. "Three weeks, and you have to separate whites and colors."

"Deal," Axel said, shrugging in a way that he hoped looked indignant. Nine times out of ten, Roxas would have sex with him if Axel did his laundry and bought him candy


	15. Day 15: Samurai

**A/N:** Day 15, which is nothing short of majestic, was written by **hongkongstar**, otherwise known as **kokanshu** over at livejournal, and can be found on the **117days** account which I would link to right now, but ffnet is evil about stuff like that.

I know what you're thinking: Ah, what the hell. I can skip this one day and just go on to Day 16. But you know what? No. You are wrong. You can't do that. The art is awesome, and the drabble is written by a legend. Do yourself a favor and check it out


	16. Day 16: Some Days

On a good day, ask Axel what the best part of having sex with Roxas is, and he'll treat you to a slow, spreading smirk. He'll draw his hands up behind his head, shrug his shoulders, and give a light, playful, "Everything." And you'll think he's being arrogant or at least a little facetious if it weren't for that glint in his eyes like he knows something you don't know. Like he's not sharing. After all, in his private universe where the sun shines on Roxas alone, where the wind dies at Roxas' command, every part really _is_ the best. From that dauntless, unbearable look on his face—eyes down, singular focus, and working up sweat—rocking and rocking against him until it feels like his cock is just another extension of Roxas, like the light is pouring into him, blinding. Roxas has only shot into Axel's face once, but not for lack of trying.

On a bad day, ask Axel what the best part of having sex with Roxas is, and he'll look away, maybe cough a little. His eyes will go hard, focused on some small blade of grass, some errant ray of sun. "Fucking him like a whore," he'll say, all hard edges and carelessness to make up for the fact that last night Roxas threw the microwave on the floor and made him sleep in the tub. To hide the fact that he gives a fuck at all. "Shoving it in his smartass mouth," he'll say, and maybe he'll scratch his balls and snicker a little. Just a little. It's just for emphasis, to make up for the fact that they're out of milk a-fucking-_gain_, so Roxas ate his cereal with water and bitched the entire time. To make up for the fact that he's losing his shit over a stubborn little bitch—a self-righteous bastard who fucks him until his dick feels raw and his voice is rough, but a smile's on his face and he feels _full_, feels whole. "Knows how to ride a cock," he'll say, and when he walks away abruptly, we'll know better than to follow. Axel doesn't like people to watch him get all emotional over some kid he fucks. Just some kid he fucks.

On the days that aren't good and aren't bad, Axel thinks he could stay in bed all day. They don't need to do anything because there is enough in the measured breathing at his side to fill three eternities. Enough in the golden hair and imperfect skin, in the taste of him and the sound he makes when his cock first slides in and Roxas shivers, pressing back and whispering, praying, "_Fuck me_." He doesn't feel happy, not exactly, Roxas fucking him in that insistent, furious way. Lucky, maybe, just after Roxas comes and dawn approaches. In love, maybe.


	17. Day 17: Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On

The only redeeming feature of Thursdays were 1) he finished slinging burgers at 4pm, and 2) Roxas was born on a Thursday. Other than that, Axel was pretty sure they could strike Thursdays from the calendar. Thursdays and their accompanying 4:30p.m. meetings with that bitch in the khaki pants and faux leather briefcase. Without Thursdays, he wouldn't have to sit through 30 minutes of parole officer hell and a shitty smoothie only to follow up with an hour long session of "cathartic release," otherwise known as getting your head shrunk. To make up for the fact that he'd much rather slit his wrists at the bottom of the ocean, Axel traded long-winded rants on his emotional turbulence for psychotropic drug-fueled dreams. His psychiatrist was none the wiser.

Most recently he'd related the dream of standing over a gaping chasm, hands bloodied with his own viscera, while the disembodied head of his underage boyfriend told him not to forget to put the fabric softener in before the spin cycle. The therapist, Dr. Ben, coughed a few times before he suggested that this was Axel's subconscious telling him it was not okay to date a sixteen year old. Words like "statutory" and "rape" and "legally obligated to report abuse to the proper authorities" were commonly used during their sessions, Axel's feet up on the teak desk, balancing on two legs of the rigid, stylishly non-functional chair.

"You shouldn't do that," Roxas had told him, leaned over the driver's seat of his car while Axel rolled joints in the back.

"What's he gunna do?" Axel asked, licking a cylindrically sound paper and herb gold mine closed. Roxas' dad hurt his back playing pool, and now he had a medical card. If a tube or ten went missing, he just took a couple twenties from Roxas' wallet on Sunday mornings before hitting the racetrack. Unspoken agreements and father-son bonding, or at least that's what it looked like on paper when Axel told his therapist that Roxas' dad was an asshole. "Tell me I'm crazy? Give me a couple pills?" Lighting a joint, sucking it deep, Axel asked, "You sell that Klonopin yet?"

Roxas had slithered around the driver's seat, squeezed over the stick shift and armrest, coming to rest in front of Axel's crotch. Roxas made a perfect "O" with his mouth, and Axel remembered that too much herb makes your jizz taste like shit. That night he dreamt of Roxas, a kimono-wearing feline choirboy. When he told his therapist, his dick got hard at the part where Roxas sang an E flat scale, perfect underage lips open in a perfect underage circle.

"This is a fetishization of the beloved," Dr. Ben said, pen scribbling furiously over his yellow legal pad. "Have you had homicidal ideations involving the beloved?"

After Axel walked out, because _what the fuck_, he thought about the Wednesday two weeks ago where he was reading Marcuse and Roxas was bothering him for a Slurpee, and then later, a blowjob.

"Please please please," Roxas had mumbled into the mattress, blonde head of angel hair jutting into his side like Roxas was a battering ram at the wall of Knowledge and Chastity.

"If you don't stop now, I'll fuck you until you bleed." Marcuse was saying something about repression and capitalism and Axel was _so close_ to understanding.

"Maybe I want you to fuck me until I bleed." Roxas, hands all over Axel's dick, and Axel thought that he'd say he would fuck Roxas to death. The Marcuse slid home in his brain, right around the moment Roxas stilled and cooled beneath him, his hips jackhammering in to Roxas' dead, fetishized, beloved ass.

But he would never, never admit that to Dr. Ben.

No, instead he made up for storming out with fifteen minutes describing a five hour dream wherein Roxas stared at him, sucking resolutely on a six and three quarter inch salty popsicle. When Dr. Ben asked if the popsicle was flesh colored, Axel scoffed. "It's sky blue." He left out the part where Roxas cried tears of blood and then caught on fire. He left out the part where Roxas looked like he hated him.

Fifty-eight Thursdays into his "cathartic release" with Dr. Ben—after he dreamed Roxas was a girl, just before he dreamed he and Roxas were in Slytherin and he got jealous Roxas eyed that Harry Potter bitch, and after Dr. Ben accused him of making Roxas up while sucking his dick, Axel counting the perforations on the cheap ceiling tiles as he came in his therapist's mouth—Axel dreamt that he was a French prostitute, consoling his petit cher because gonorrhea took so long to clear up, and no, he wasn't mad, but _god_ they needed the money so bad.

"He's a figment of your imagination," Dr. Ben said, mouth closing and closing over a chunk of prime rib. It was bloody on his plate, bloody in his mouth, and Axel sipped at his shitty red wine. "A figment of your libido." Never mind the part where Axel held Roxas, dick sliding in and out like he was fucking clouds. Never mind the part where he held Roxas in Dr. Ben's office as his beloved slipped, fell away to some place Axel couldn't see.

"He's real," Axel said into his glass. Roxas was mirrored in the pool of red, smiling and nodding like he'd said the right thing. Dr. Ben laughed at his prime rib, shook his head as he licked at a piece of meat stuck in his teeth.


	18. Day 18: Make Believe

Roxas cannot remember a time when he was ever alone. Ever since he can remember, there has always been someone else. When he was four, there was Michael. His hair that wasn't blonde and his eyes that weren't blue, Michael played with Roxas every day. Mostly with the sand, sometimes on the slide. Never the swings because Roxas is afraid of heights. When Michael came to school with him, Roxas couldn't understand why they never called Michael's name.

In time, Roxas learned not to talk out loud to Michael, or to Layla or Rondine or Lusso. In time, Roxas couldn't stand the way the other kids would call him "Weirdo" or "Sixth Sense Boy." He never understood the last one; it's not like any of them were dead. They just... weren't real. Despite learning this, Roxas still loved them, Lusso especially, and they never got any quieter.

When the other kids took to throwing small amounts of glitter at him, addressing him in the seventh grade hall as "Crazy Fairy Boy," Roxas learned to spend a lot of time in the field. He learned to eat lunch fast and right by the doors. He learned to take his homework out at the very last second. He learned not to take the school bus home. Waiting for the regular bus was sometimes a pain, the Metro drivers seemingly operating on a very particular, completely illogical schedule, and his parents would get so worried, but the five seconds where the school bus would drive by the Metro stop (once someone threw an orange at him) were the better alternative to the hour and a half of humiliation. It wasn't like _everyone_ was picking on him, but the people who did it were always so loud. In middle school, everything is about reputation. Everything is about not getting the weird on you, or the crazy or the faggot or the nerd. Everything is about being nameless and faceless with nothing to draw attention to you. Imaginary friends? Not exactly incognito.

The first time Roxas meets Axel, he's head down and whispering at the Metro stop. Roxas thinks he's alone, and Lusso is being particularly hilarious. Giggling, Roxas freezes as he hears the crack of a match. When he turns to look, he notices the boy who usually gets on at this stop, only usually he's very late, sometimes missing it completely, Roxas seeing him run after the bus, waving his arms. He looks way too young to be smoking, and when the boy blows an exhale of smoke into his face, Roxas can only choke quietly, a little quizzical look on his face.

"It's not polite to stare."

A cough, a stealthy glance at Lusso for approval. No one new has spoken to him nicely in the last four months. "I'm Roxas. Pleased to meet you." He holds out his hand and smiles with all his teeth. For a second he thinks the boy might shove him into the street, cold, appraising eyes flicking up and down his body. Eventually the other boy extends his hand, fits it securely in Roxas', and squeezes briefly.

"You're fucking weird."

They talk, the boy giving Roxas a cigarette that he coughs around. Axel doesn't volunteer his name until the third time he's early for the bus. He's a tenth grader, and yeah, he knows smoking will kill him, and yeah, sometimes he gets held in class after the bell, and god damn why didn't he ask the driver to wait if Roxas saw him running.

"You're not that weird," Axel says, smiling a little and eyeing the spot where Roxas is holding Lusso's hand. Roxas grins and holds out an apple for Axel to share with him.

After a month of Axel coming early, talking with him and smiling at him and eating all his fruit, someone at school finally says something.

"Hey Crazy Fairy Boy, made any new friends?" Roxas doesn't know the boy, just that he smells like sweat and has grass stains on the knees of his jeans. Roxas knows he rides the bus home.

Shrugging, Roxas presses his back against a wall and crosses his arms, lowering his head a little. He wonders if he was taller whether or not they'd still do this to him. "Yes. His name is Axel. He goes to the high school."

There is a short burst of fake ooohing and ahhing, the sweaty boy's friends laughing beside him. "High school, huh? Wow. Have you told him you're crazy yet?" Roxas just breathes. "Or is he another dead person?"

"They aren't _dead_," Roxas says quietly. Michael and Layla moved away. Rondine died in a car accident, and Roxas definitely never saw him afterward. Swallowing thickly, Roxas says, "Axel is real. He smokes."

The laughter is hysterical. "Your other friend smoke, too? That Lusso, he smoke?" More laughter, and then the sweaty boy leans close, Grape BubbleYum cloying on his breath as he gets in Roxas' face. "Lusso ever touch you anywhere naughty? You guys faggots together?" Roxas breathes and waits for them to leave. Lusso has only kissed him once, and then it was only on the cheek after he ate a piece of rice stuck to Roxas' face. He has a best friend; having a best friend doesn't make you gay.

Roxas walks home for the next three days. It's only six miles, but it seems to take an eternity. On the fourth, after he decides sleeping in the school library will probably get him in trouble, he gets off the Metro where Axel usually does. He walks two streets up and to the right.

"Like Neverland," Axel said when Roxas asked where he lived. "Yellow house. If you ever get lost, come find me."

Roxas' hand shakes as he knocks on the door. Axel answers barefoot, the T.V. remote in his hand. He's smiling all over his face, and Roxas automatically feels the need to feed him some fruit.

Rifling around in his backpack until he produces a peach, Roxas hands it over, staring hard at the control in Axel's hand. "Are you real?"

Axel, already chewing on a bite of the peach, pauses mid-bite. "What?"

He'd never asked Lusso, never asked any of them. It hadn't ever mattered if they were or not. But Lusso was around less lately, stopping in just as Roxas was going to bed, and Roxas just really, really hoped Axel wasn't imaginary, too. "The kids at school said you're not real."

Axel chews steadily, watching Roxas shake. "The kids at school are jackasses."

Roxas sinks to his knees and starts to cry. Axel goes very quiet before getting down on the ground in the doorway and pulling Roxas onto him. "I don't want to be crazy. I don't want to be crazy." Roxas is gripping his head, and the tears feel like they're burning. Lusso has never held him like Axel is holding him.

Later, after the sweaty BubbleYum boy shows up at school with a broken arm, after Lusso moves away, after Roxas graduates middle school and starts as a freshman where Axel is a senior, Roxas still can't understand how he started getting popular.

"Look at you," Axel says. They're leaned up against a tree, eating fruit and watching the pep rally in the quad. "Of course you're popular."

Roxas shrugs, takes another bite of the apple in Axel's hand. Girls had never liked him before; it didn't make sense how they just randomly started thinking he was cute. His rise in popularity was in direct proportion to how many girls thought he was "sooo a_dor_able!" But he doesn't like girls much. Axel has only kissed him on the mouth once, over the summer, but Roxas is pretty sure that he likes Axel.


	19. Day 19: Disneyland

Roxas was pretty sure it was illegal to be standing in line anywhere for two hours at the crack of dawn, much less standing in line with screaming children and bleary eyed adults at the gates of Disneyland. It had been Pence's idea, navigating the 5 South with steely precision at six in the morning, dodging early morning commuters and, mysteriously, a deer.

"We could have died," Pence said, glaring attentively at the still locked gates, the still unmanned ticketing booths. Somewhere behind Roxas a child wailed for another happy meal. They'd been able to avoid the astronomical entry fee by having Olette ask her hot shot exec father to pull some magical bullshit strings. The locked gates, though, those were a problem.

"When do they open?" Roxas asked, staring morosely at the direction of the parking lot. Axel had still not arrived, offering some excuse of a late night movie premier that had him crawling home just shy of two in the morning reeking of popcorn.

"You trying to kill me?" Axel had pleaded, asking for an extra two hours of sleep before driving down to meet them at the gates. It's not that Roxas hated his other friends. They just weren't Axel.

"Should be any minute now," Pence said, raised up on his tiptoes to peer over the head of a boy in a Mickey Mouse hat. Hayner, having taken off to find a reasonable bush to piss behind, had left his highly inefficient pillowcase that doubled as a man bag with Olette. Wandering back toward their spot in the line while zipping up his fly in the process, Hayner tried to take the pillowcase from Olette.

"I hope you didn't look inside."

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Olette jerked the man bag away. "Why?"

"Your virgin eyes," Pence offered, eyeing the fast food breakfast sandwich the mouse-ear clad boy in front of him was eating spiritedly.

Olette gave a dainty grunt before untying the pillowcase and examining its contents. Roxas noted her face turned a lovely sort of eggplant before she spoke again.

"Hayner," she said, horrified, "You cannot bring _vodka_ into Disneyland.

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because." The new voice came from over Roxas' shoulder, a smiling douchebaggy sort of voice, dripping with all sorts of pathetic charm that Roxas once could only just tolerate, but now found sort of... well, endearing. Axel slid an arm around Roxas' shoulder, shook a bag of rainbow Goldfish in his face. "Disneyland is the most magical place on Earth, and vodka is for deviants and Russians."

"Well good," Hayner said. "I'm a fucking Russian, I guess."

"And a deviant," Pence quipped, nodding at the gates. "Look, they're opening." This is when Roxas noticed Axel's fanny pack.

"What the shit is that?"

"My fashion-friendly and super functional fanny pack," Axel said, tossing a couple crackers in his mouth. "Pretty fancy, right?'

"It's gold," Roxas said, horrified.

"American Apparel doesn't sell regular colored things. It's always weird shit like purple or like shiny spandex jumpsuits the color of clown vomit. Besides," Axel said, making a Goldfish swim in front of Roxas' mouth, "what's wrong with gold?"

"IT'S A FANNY PACK," Roxas shouted. His life was probably over. "You," he said, raising a shaking finger at the grinning redhead, "You are ruining my life. And my reputation as a sane person with non-retarded friends."

"Whatever," Axel said, shrugging as he continued along the line, Olette still obviously perturbed at Hayner's soon to be confiscated Beverage of Champions (read: Deviants and Russians). "I still think it's pretty fancy.


	20. Day 20: Run Run Runaway

Day four of their trek across country, destination nothing but the promise of summer and seaside on the front of a postcard Axel had taped to their rental dashboard, and Axel was already driving him crazy.

"When I agreed to this, I didn't know that any dancing would be involved," Roxas said from his dejected slump against the bathroom door frame. They had fries for their last four meals, and his body had begun to physically crave the taste of fruit. Axel had effectively taken over the small motel room, dancing across every inch of the matted, day old oatmeal-colored carpet that smelled suspiciously like meat.

"I am exercising my rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Roxas. Do you dare infringe upon my rights?" Axel began doing the disco, fixing Roxas with an infuriating smirk.

"You're infringing upon _my_ pursuit of happiness. This," Roxas gestured, grimacing at the obscene swagger of Axel's hips, "is making me severely unhappy. I may slit my wrists at any moment."

"Your melodrama is astounding," Axel smirked, turning in a little circle. Roxas was sure it couldn't get any worse. Then the singing started. Axel's vocal approximation of a bass line Roxas had heard a thousand times, usually accompanied by some nauseating shuffle and Axel's atrocious falsetto, set his eardrums afire.

"WELL, YOU CAN TELL BY THE WAY I USE MY WALK, I'M A WOMAN'S MAN-"

"Yeah, and you sound like one, too."

Discoing punctuated by little hip thrusts, Axel grinned. "My falsetto is excellent, I know."

"It sounds like the dying wails of clubbed baby seals."

"AH HA HA HA STAYIN' ALIVE, STAYIN' ALIVE. Come on, Roxas, do this dance with me."

As Axel worked up a sweat, arms arrow straight and hips swaying, Roxas felt a tiny burst of sorrowed panic fizzle behind his sternum. Sure, Axel had always been a little obnoxious, a little careless of things like societal standards and dignity. Lately, though, he'd been unhinged completely, given to bursts of song and escapades of questionable legality. Five stolen street signs and one convenience store heist later, Roxas started to see that this particular brand of acting out was how Axel dealt with tragedy. That was the point after all, wasn't it? To escape, to be free. This is why they were even here in the first place. It was the first thing Axel told anyone who asked.

"Actually, I'm my own legal guardian," Axel had said, countless motel clerks staring at him, seventeen and dripping with all the telltale signs of delinquency, suspiciously while flipping through the legal documents Axel kept in a crumpled wad in his back pocket. "I'm an orphan."

They all had to go a little crazy sometime; maybe now was Axel's. Now, after Axel's parents' funeral, after a month of staring and exclusion, after one fistfight over the makeshift tetherball court in the back. Now, after they fell in that stupid, impossible kind of love made imperative by loss, after Roxas, sixteen and prone to getting dirt on his face without his knowledge ("You look like an animal"), officially dropped off the grid. Laying under the foundation of the orphanage, sunlight streaking through the porch slats, Axel promised that they could live off of what his parents left him until they got jobs. Hands pressed together, Axel quoted him Beatles' lyrics and spun elaborate, desperate, tales about subsisting off of sunshine, daisies, and love. Roxas never believed him, but when Axel had walked out the door, suitcase and papers in hand, he'd followed.

"Dance with me, Roxas," Axel said, on the bed now and gyrating to the epileptic techno blaring over his miniature iPod speakers. Before, Roxas would've been embarrassed, would've looked away and shrugged while everyone stared. It was different now. Accepting Axel's outstretched hand, Roxas felt... liberated. Defiant, almost. Because fuck everybody else. He didn't need everybody else; just Axel. Axel, who never cried. Axel, who sang loudly, off key, and loved him with the force of a natural disaster


	21. Day 21: Criminal Intent

The execution was set for noon, but it was always impossible to tell what time it was against the same white expanse of softly illuminated walls devoid of windows. Soft white light for rehabilitation, for healing. Rehabilitation, healing, and then you pay for your crimes because the Law is blind, because justice is justice. Axel didn't even want his choice of a meal. Just his healer, thanks, and could they be quick about it? He had places to be.

When he first met Roxas, hands bound and sheathed in gloves of chain-linked adamantium, Axel wanted to spit in his patient, precocious face. Healers, the great saviors of the dammed, speeding along recovery with innate properties unbound by dated science. Healers would save you, healers would change your life. Therapy no longer came in pills; it came in twenty minute sessions with healers, soft and quiet and begging for a good burning.

"Hey, pretty boy. Bet your ass is nice and tight." Because who the fuck needs a _healer_? It was a bunch of fairy dust bullshit. The new science could try to explain phenomena all it wanted. Didn't change the fact that he was a freak, that this healer bitch was a freak, and that he was very, very pissed off. "They sure got a lotta fuckin' nerve sending your pussy ass in here." The healer was unresponsive, sitting quietly across from Axel. "They tell you what I did? I torched little boys like _you_. Burned the motherfuckers to the ground. A buncha cocksucking faggots, anyway, right? Who's gunna miss 'em?" The healer stared at Axel in the eyes, and for the first ten minutes after his pleasant introduction, Axel smirked into the little shit's face, the adamantium gloves superheating behind him, containing the rapid oxidation sparking in his fingers. The following five minutes had Axel shaking, and the last five, crying. "You _fuck_. I'll fucking kill you, you little queer fuck."

The guard that had the unfortunate task of retrieving him from sessional received third-degree burns for his trouble, Roxas watching the angry redheaded boy being led away unconscious after they took his emotional breakdown as a threat. He spent the night in isolation, unwilling to let the proximity of other healers wash away the hurt that boy made him feel. Wasn't he a healer? Why hadn't he helped the angry boy?

Their next three sessions were entirely silent, full of Roxas' uncomplicated, childish lull coupled with Axel's hostile glare. Roxas had only spoken once, at the start of the second session.

"Hello." He tried to smile, but healers had a hard time retaining feeling, more prone to the ebb and flow of human emotion—inhale poison, exhale peace. "My name is Roxas." Axel had only glared, and he continued to glare until their fifth session.

"You ever sucked cock?" Axel, hostile, arms behind his back, gloved.

Roxas breathed a small sigh of relief before shaking his head. "No, healers are not allowed to engage in sexual activity."

"You always play by the rules?" The kid had pretty eyes, a delicate mouth. Perfect for cocksucking.

"Do you always break them?"

Axel spent the rest of the time staring at the white table in between them. It wasn't much, but it was a start. A start followed by a small build, sessions piling on and doubling until Axel would talk until his mouth hurt, would smile back without that lecherous glint like he was planning to eat Roxas alive. Eventually, Axel was brought to the sessional uncuffed, wriggling his fingers at Roxas across the table. The gloves, though, they always stayed on. Woven through with threaded microvials of concentrated incendiary chemicals, the gloves would literally explode if Axel ever tried to take them off. They were light, but coarse, and it was customary for spots of blood to litter the spotless white of the table during sessional.

"I'm going to make the plea tomorrow," Roxas said one day, knees clutched to his chest as they talked. "You're healed."

"Thought healers didn't lie," Axel said, winking. He was bleeding on the table again, wiping the drops of blood with the hem of his shirt.

Roxas watched the blood drip and felt mild rage. He was in isolation all the time now, shunning the other healers. He liked the way he felt about Axel; he didn't want to forget. "It's not a lie. You're quite cured."

"That easy, huh?" Mirthless laughter. He was so sorry all the time now, seven months after conviction. Fifteen counts of manslaughter. Accident or purpose, none of it mattered. Because the Law is blind, justice is justice. "Does that mean we can bump up excursions?"

Roxas grinned, really grinned, before his features floated back to dreamy uncomplication. "Of course. I will make the arrangements."

The first time they were on the grounds, Axel fucked Roxas up against an ivory monolith that looked like art of nothing. Gasping on each thrust, Roxas clung to the back of his neck. "Shouldn't even be happening." The words punctuated by Axel pumping into him, both of them mostly clothed and dripping sweat in the spring air.

"I'm not angry," Axel said, dropping a kiss to his healer's temple. "I'm in love."

In love in love in love, but the Law is blind, and justice is justice. Axel—rehabilitated, healed— would have to forfeit his life for burning down that school. Accident or purpose, nothing would change his sentence.

He cried when Roxas was admitted into his cell, a full year since he'd given up his trails of angry tears after his first sessional. Sobbed and threatened and broke into a million pieces as Roxas worked against him, in him. He cried again now, gloves removed for nearly a full week, as he ran his hands through his healer's hair. He'd dreamt of feeling Roxas' skin, dreamt of touching the wetness of his mouth. They spent whole hours just holding each others' hands.

"It's time now, Axel," Roxas said. He couldn't tell Axel that last night he was so distraught that he was removed from isolation and subject to the hands of his peers, feeling the fear, the horror, ripped away from his limbs. It hadn't been enough to ease all the pain; no one could have guessed Roxas was this attached to his charge. No, he could spend the rest of his life in the silent, accepting caress of healers, but nothing would soothe the memory of Axel from his muscles.

Shoulders hunched, aching, Axel tried to submit to the subtle waves coming out of Roxas; healing, light, laughter. Roxas shook with the effort, trying to calm Axel before the end. "It doesn't work because I'm not angry. I love you, Roxas." More crying, and now Roxas had to hold his breath. Healers don't cry. "I love you, I love you. I don't want to die."

Roxas reached into his memory, pulled out the words. "Then you should not have taken the lives of others. You understand the crime you have committed. Do you not also understand that there must be recompense?"

"Don't," Axel whispered, "Don't spout your healer bible at me, Rox. You know how it is. I was angry. It was an _accident_."

"It is Law, Axel. It is Law." His voice broke as they entered the execution chamber. They were no longer permitted to speak to each other, no longer permitted to touch. Roxas wondered why he hadn't thought to kiss Axel back when they were still in the hall, anointing the steps of the dammed. Why hadn't he? Why hadn't he?

_Inmate number 410318, a quantity of gas shall be taken into your body until you are dead, in accordance with the Law. May God have mercy upon your soul._


	22. Day 22: Street Fighter

Axel knew even before he opened the door to 3B that something was afoot. He didn't rightly know what "afoot" meant, other than he'd heard it used in conjunction with "evil" before, and where Roxas and the 6p.m. nightly news were concerned, evil was certainly afoot.

"Hey, buddy." That's right, Axel. Casual and nonchalant. Toe your shoes off right in front of the door just like always. Lure him into your clutches with false security. Check the fridge for dinner that he never cooks. You know he never cooks it, but you check all the time anyway. "What's for dinner?"

"My dick." Roxas, bored sounding and slumped against the couch like he'd climbed Everest as opposed to slept through a couple hours of college composition.

Hopping over the top of the tragically tacky woolly mammoth masquerading as a couch, Axel grinned. "Sounds delicious." Roxas scowled, gaze fixed on the large-headed female anchor as she rattled off a few new statistics about cellphones probably giving us all brain cancer. Staring carefully around the room before pausing on the very obviously whirring PlayStation 3, Axel shot Roxas a look. "So you okay?"

"Dur." The PS3 controller was shoved between Roxas' thigh and the right armrest of the woolly mammoth.

"You sure?" Axel studied a clump of woolly mammoth couch fur with feigned interest. "It's just that, y'know, you don't ever really watch the news."

"I happen to care a great deal about current events," Roxas said, shrugging.

"Oh, yeah? What'd she just say?" Axel motioned toward the large-headed anchor.

"Um, that doesn't count. You were talking."

"OK MR. CURRENT EVENTS MAN. YOU ALWAYS WATCH THE NEWS WITH THE PS3 ON? HOW ABOUT WITH A CONTROLLER HALFWAY UP YOUR ASS?" Axel used this opportunity—clever, making Roxas wince at his bellowing, thus leaving him open to attack—to hijack the controls for the T.V. and the PS3. "What're you playing, Rox, huh? _Barbie Goes to the Mall 4_?"

"Your knowledge of current technology is astounding. No, really," Roxas said, folding his arms in Roxas-brand defeat wherein Axel gloated over his victory and Roxas pretended not to give a damn.

The screen was paused on a _Street Fighter IV_ match between Chun-Li and Blanka, the former getting her ass handed to her with 19 seconds left on the clock. "Please," Axel said, handing the control over. "Tell me you're the green guy with sexy hair." Roxas remained silent, mouth twitching. "Oh my g—"

"Say one more thing and you can suck your own dick for the next week."

"—God, that's so _awesome_, I was gunna say before I was _rudely_ interrupted. You're the girl with the modified bra on her head? That's so cute, Rox."

"I will castrate you." The rest of the match was brief, Roxas watching Blanka tear into his character until she was K.O.'d "Fuck."

"Man, you _suck_."

"YOU KNOW," Roxas said loudly. "I chose this match because Blanka reminds me of you."

Not good, Axel. Not good. "The hair?"

"Well, that, and also the sickly green skin and the raving savage animality."

Sitting up and crossing his arms dejectedly, Axel glared at the screen. "Yeah, well." He paused, unable to think of a fitting comeback. His skin wasn't _sickly_... was it?

After the preliminary insults were traded and Axel stopped sulking enough to shoot Roxas a sideways glance—the litter fucker was watching him, grinning toothily—Axel scrambled around the kitchen, unearthing a couple melon popsicles and splitting one of his specialties with Roxas: the Soggy Waffle Sandwich, for When the Fridge is Empty and You're Out of Bread. Because Roxas liked waffles, they were never out; throw in a couple heaping tablespoons of peanut butter, a few tortured bananas, and _voila_: a perfectly atrocious substitute dinner.

"I think," Axel said around a bite of soggy waffle sandwich, "you're getting closer to beating him." It was Chun-Li's fourth re-match against Blanka. By the seventh, Axel was using his popsicle as his commentator mic. "30 seconds on the clock, ladies and gents, right down to the wire, and it's Chun-Li, manned by little boy Roxas, in the left corner, Blanka, manned by a computer or some shit, in the right, and, folks, it doesn't look pretty. Blood on the floor, on the stands, and here comes Blanka with a roundhouse and—oooh, that had to hurt."

"Shut!" Roxas shouted, thumbs dancing wildly over the controller, "Your fucking! Mouth!"

"Five seconds left, ladies and gentlemen, _five seconds_, so close we can _taste_ it." The popsicle melted around Axel's knuckles, the redhead darting a tongue out to catch drips between his fevered commentating. "This is it, folks. Roxas hasn't eaten or slept in weeks, training Chun-Li to prepare for the match against her most vicious opponent. He's going in for the win...!" As Roxas lifted his thumb to land the final kick, Blanka went all electric, leaving Chun-Li in a sizzling K.O.'d heap. "...And he dies. AGAIN. FOR THE 80TH TIME."

"FUCK! SHUT! UP!" Roxas shouted, hurling the controller at the carpet. "THIS SANDWICH SUCKS."

Wounded, Axel retried Roxas' half eaten portion of the soggy waffle sandwich. "First my skin is gross—oh, and let's not forget the savage animal part—and now my cooking sucks."

"This," Roxas said, snatching the food out of Axel's hand and waving it around, "is not cooking. This is a fistful of _malnutrition_." Roxas had this thing about losing. He couldn't do it. Roxas didn't lose at cards, he didn't lose at Street Fighter, and he definitely didn't lose arguments. Axel didn't see why he had to be so _mean_ about it, though, jeez.

"Jeez," Axel shrugged, trying to figure out what to do with his messy hands. "I'm-"

"Shut it," Roxas said, hopping into his lap. "How about I call my parents, we go to dinner with them, and then we come back here and I kick your ass in a match. You can apologize for sucking then."

How do you say no to that? All stubborn and bratty. All telling and no asking. "I love you," Axel said, arms crossed behind Roxas' back at the wrists because his hands were all smeared with peanut butter and he didn't want to get any on Roxas.

"Oh, really." Roxas said, not a question, and bumped his nose against Axel's.


	23. Day 23: The Beat Generation

"So, I have this theory," Axel said, leaned against Roxas, legs over the end of the couch, "that Ginsberg was on drugs." It had been Roxas' plan to read a couple books together over the summer. Gearing up for college and all, but Axel didn't think that "a couple books" meant "these massive anthologies of things written by insane people."

Smiling into his poetry anthology, Roxas shrugged. "Probably."

"I'm serious, man. Is this like his ode to dicks? If I read the word 'cock' again, I'm going to whip mine out."

"I think that joint is fucking with your brain chemistry," Roxas sighed.

"These," Axel said, waving around the joint, tapping on the sunglasses, "are necessities. _Ambiance_ and shit so I can channel him." Axel read a couple lines of the poem aloud. "Is it working? Do I sound hip and sexy?"

"No, you sound like a jackass, and _that's_ probably because you look like one. You know it's night outside, right?"

"The sun, my dear angelheaded hipster, never sets on a badass. Or Allen Ginsberg. OR that one guy, who sings the song." There was a fearful second where Roxas was sure Axel would burst into song—_I wear my suuunglaaasses at night—_derailing their reading session forever, but the moment passed.

"Ohhh," Roxas said, leg bouncing up and down over the other end of the couch. Axel felt solid behind him. Safe. "So I'm the 'angelheaded hipster?' I don't get to be the 'cock and endless balls?'"

Axel's body vibrated against him, laughter shaking the both of them. "You kidding? Have you seen your balls lately? No, _I_ am the endless balls."

"The, uhhh," Roxas said, flipping a few pages ahead. "The saintly motocyclist?"

"Yep," Axel said, inhaling. "The one that fucks people in the ass, right?"

"Right," Roxas said, smiling. Was it hot, or was it just him? Fucking Ginsberg. "I think your theory is valid. He was definitely on drugs.


	24. Day 24: Mulholland Drive

While Axel was busy cutting a line of coke, simultaneously flipping off the last text from his publicist—_"Keep it in your pants. VF at 10, no time for damage control."_—Roxas was huffing it up the last stretch of hill. He'd parked his shitty Honda a couple houses down, driving it almost entirely into a bush before he was satisfied. This was, literally, the first and last chance he'd ever have at crashing this party. After, he'd probably be on the industry hit list or something, a dated headshot with his name inked threateningly at the bottom. No, this was it. He'd prepared himself impeccably; $200 jeans, $80 shirt, some vintage blazer he dropped five bucks on, and the Dior sunglasses he was borrowing from Riku's lawyer dad's flamboyant uncle who was vacationing in L.A. from his villa in the Caribbean. Riku had promised him a swift death if there was so much as a fog of breath when Roxas returned them.

The plan involved finding some entourage to lose himself in, but Roxas seemed to have shown up just a little too late to be fashionable, hanging out by a sagging jacaranda that continually dropped soft purple flowers into his hair. Debating his next course of action, Roxas almost died when a car rolled up and Axel walked out, strutting unconcernedly past the doorman like he owned the place. It was him. It was really him. Breath sped up considerably, Roxas whipped out his BlackBerry and dialed his voicemail, navigating to the three minute message left by Naminé, going on and on about his non-existent interviews with GQ and Us Weekly at 11a.m. the next morning, telling him to take a look at the new Danny Boyle script tucked away in the glove box of his non-existent Benz. Breath light and racing like he was running a marathon, Roxas tried his very best not to faint when the doorman stepped out to block his path to the door. Drawing upon hidden stores of asshole locked in his chest, Roxas made a dismissive sound, gave a disgruntled "UH HUH" into his phone, and waved the doorman away. Cowed, the man nodded and stepped aside.

The trick to Hollywood is _knowing_ you belong there, like there isn't the slightest doubt in your mind that you aren't going to walk right in through those towering burnished cherry doors and into the perfumed foyer like you owned the goddamn place. Just like Axel had. Keeping his sunglasses on despite it being 11:36 at night, Roxas wandered over to the back wall comprised entirely of glass. The view that he'd peeked at while walking up the hill was nothing short of breathtaking, West Hollywood right below, the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills all around, and downtown off to the left, towers of industry blinking prettily like they didn't know they housed corruption and dirt. Roxas smirked into his flute of champagne.

Twenty feet away, cutting up another line of coke in the spacious bathroom while he made eyes at the hot piece of ass washing his hands at the sink, Axel wondered why he'd even come. The film, some flashy piece of blockbuster bullshit that put another million in his name, had an Oscar nod for special effects and one other... best score in a piece of shit, probably. They'd gotten that guy, that big theme guy, and he'd done a good job. But Axel, he was superfluous. Typecast as the Almost-Annoying Snarky Comeback Sidekick Guy, he was offered the same role over and over with slight changes in wardrobe and name. Not that he minded, really, making out with the hot piece of ass, gums pleasantly numb from the leftover rub of coke against them. Leave the "serious roles" to the "serious actors." Axel just _loved_ serious actors, desperate to suck his cock if he'd put a word in with this director, or that producer. Serious actors were great in bed. Nah, he'd take his medium salary roles and droves of squealing girls. He wouldn't touch any of them—girls are so _bitchy_—but the sentiment was nice.

Roxas couldn't figure out if the little wrapped pieces of cake were edible or just for design. He kept inadvertently drawing attention to himself just by being, he hoped anyway, good-looking. Fielding four questions so far if he was a director's new "it boy," Roxas just hoped Axel would re-appear soon. Just one word would be good, and if he got really lucky, a whole sentence. One whole sentence, and then Roxas could die happy. They could take a him away, slap him with a restraining order. If Axel, _the_ Axel, talked to him, _him_, regular Roxas from Burbank, he could retire from life. He was in the middle of fantasizing about the exact color of the actor's eyes when there was a "hey" over his shoulder.

"Nice view, huh?" Axel wasn't even looking out the windowed wall, instead staring predatorily into Roxas' face. "You're in that new soap, right?"

"I," Roxas said, heart falling out of his ass. "I, uh." Axel grinned ferociously, eyes flashing.

"I know, right?" Eyes darting to the champagne flute in Roxas' hand, Axel held Roxas by the wrist and lifted the glass to his mouth, emptying its contents and licking his lips. "You think, 'hey, it's champagne.' Glorified wine, right? What's it gunna do?" Axel removed the glass from Roxas' hand, set it on the table with the fancy cakes. "Next thing you know, you're wasted."

"I'm okay," Roxas breathed. He was blowing it. Any second now he'd cave and play the fanboy or, worse, cave and ask for autograph on his ass.

"Don't know why I'm even here," Axel said, smiling into Roxas' face. The coke was crackling in his veins, and he really, really wanted to fuck this angelfaced it boy with the nervous eyes. "It's actually a little stuffy; wanna walk around? Harvest some bathroom cabinets?"

Roxas nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed Axel out of the room crawling with industry people. It wasn't like he'd imagined, people snorting lines of blow off of every reflective surface, but it was a different story behind closer doors, one off the hallway opening and closing to reveal a cloud of smoke too sticky to be pot, but Roxas thought they only smoked opium in... oh, right.

There was a balcony at the opposite end of the house, staring off into Century City, and as soon as they were past the French doors, Axel was on him. Tongue whipping around in his mouth, hands on his ass, Roxas figured he'd fallen asleep in the cakes or died and gone to some perverted heaven. Axel's hand snaked it's way into the front of his $200 jeans, lithe fingers wrapping around the base of his dick and _tugging_.

"I-I, uh, nnngh," Roxas mumbled against Axel's lips.

"Mmm, you wanna suck my dick?" Axel said into his mouth, licking his teeth and grinding his hips against Roxas. He could barely get the "yes" out fast enough. The pop of a button, glide of a zipper, some maneuvering, and Axel pulled his dick into view, stroking as Roxas got on his knees. "Suck it, baby."

It was all cheesy and surreal, like Roxas could feel cameras rolling behind him, a director leaned close and watching his every move. Axel's dick was long, tasted faintly of piss, but it was _Axel's_dick, and that was all that mattered. Axel found the head lively, energetic. They both felt manipulative, using this other person as a means to an end. Got my dick sucked by some cute kid in last season's sunglasses, liked it so much I blew in the back of his throat just two minutes in. Got to suck the dick of a Hollywood hotshot, liked it so much I came in my $200 jeans after he grabbed onto the back of my head and fucked my face.

Roxas spluttered against the come lodged in his throat, body shaking with his own orgasm. He'd jacked off to this same exact scenario a hundred thousand times, but somehow they all ended with him _not_ coming in a $200 pair of jeans.

"Want me to fuck you against the rail?" Axel asked, pulling out a baggie of coke and snorting a bump before handing another out to Roxas. Sniffing, wincing against the burst of pain, Roxas undid his jeans.

It wasn't exactly comfortable, feeling now more than ever the presence of cameras rolling, his cock bouncing, tapping the chrome rail as Axel plowed into him with industrial force, hands at his waist and pushing into him like scrambling toward the surface for air. Pounding, white knuckled against the rail, lurching forward over the balcony, people schmoozing around the pool three floors below.

"Take that dick, baby. Take that dick." Axel was unconcerned with the absurdity of his words, grunting a whole series of lewd, unsanitary things that made Roxas' cock _throb_ with want. A sudden flurry of thrusts so vicious that Roxas' hold against the rail slipped and his chest slammed into the chrome, and Axel came with a heavy growl, dropping his hands from Roxas' hips immediately, spinning him around, stripping off the condom, and shooting into Roxas' dazed, half-responsive face. Bringing a hand up to stop a drop of semen from falling onto his $80 shirt, Axel stepped back, giggling almost. "_Damn_."

Roxas felt flushed, embarrassed almost. He was still hard, aching against every little curl of night air against his dick. So this was the part where Axel thanked him, offered him another bump of coke, then excused himself. He'd probably walk in on him later, fucking some blonde "serious actor" against the bathroom sink. Despite how this should've made him sick, Roxas only whimpered in the back of his throat. He needed to come really, really bad.

"Here," Axel said, holding out a hand to hoist Roxas up from the floor. Axel secured his hands on the rail, pressed a kiss to Roxas' mouth, then worked his way down. Just the breath on his cock was enough to make him moan, head tossed back to watch the constellations visible past the light pollution of Hollywood. Axel was very, very good at sucking cock, tongue working exhaustively, constant light suction, one hand on his waist, the other fingering him softly. It would've been sweet if Axel hadn't just come in his face, hadn't just fucked him where paparazzi were probably hiding in trees just off the property. Axel's mouth slid over his dick long after he came, saliva replacing the slick of come until Roxas was limp and shivering from the effort.

Was this how it always was, Roxas wondered, pulling up his briefs and pants, straightening out his shirt, re-situating himself inside his blazer. Axel had condoms and little self-serving packets of lube. Axel fucked around with other actors, gave them the most perfect blowjobs of their lives, and that was it? Watching the lights of the city, Roxas felt Axel slide up behind him, hands pulling him at the hips in a clothed, imperfect memory of their fucking just a few minutes previously. The actor offered him another bump of coke, and Roxas felt it electrify his nerves.

It was what he could offer, Axel figured. Coke, a blowjob. Maybe this one would stick around... something to do with those nervous eyes and that hot, adoring mouth. The kid sucked dick with his eyes closed. When was the last time that happened? When was the last time some "serious actor" tongued his sack and didn't bat his eyelashes in that pathetic, sleazy way so typical of serious, so serious, actors? It was almost like this boy, this blonde it boy, _liked_ him. Really liked him.

"Can I get your publicist's number?" Axel murmured against Roxas' neck, pressing kisses to the soft, salty skin. The night was cool, but the boy felt like a fever under his hands. He hadn't even asked his name.

Roxas winced into the city lights. _Fuck_. Now what would he do? "Listen, I'm... not out. I have a," he paused, panicking, "film dropping soon. Don't want any bad press."

Axel's hands slid slowly from around Roxas' body. _Fuck_. "Yeah, no. It's cool. I know how it is." Memories of his publicist bitching at him endlessly, going on and on about how damage control was sucking up his paychecks, she was a goddamn _pub_licist, not a spinner, and they couldn't keep this shit out of the tabloids forever. He was going to walk away, probably punch a wall in an empty room and finish the coke, when he paused. "Can I give you my number?"

Roxas smiled into his hands, pushing away the hot, stinging tears from his eyes. The one thing he wanted, and he could never, never have it. "Yeah." He was just Roxas, just Roxas from Burbank. He programmed Axel's number into his phone, eyes twinkling with barely restrained tears, bouncing back city lights in a way that Axel mistook for laughter. But of course, he was just the witty sidekick guy. This boy, this it boy, he was the star. The heartthrob. Hell, he probably liked chicks.

"Call me," Axel said, pressing a kiss full of hope, countless hours of nearly forgotten hope, into Roxas' mouth. Roxas just smiled, eyes twinkling.

Roxas never called.

Axel didn't forget at first, but he did in the end; maybe a year or two before he forgot those sweet, nervous eyes and body that fit against him perfectly. He never got a name, just called him "the boy" in his head, but eventually, enough parties and enough coke later, he forgot. Landed a leading role that got panned by critics, went back to his typecast sidekick status, and every time he fucked a small blonde, he couldn't figure out why it made him sad.

* * *

BONUS: ALTERNATE ENDING!

"Call me," Axel said, pressing a kiss full of hope, countless hours of nearly forgotten hope, into Roxas' mouth. Roxas just smiled, eyes twinkling.

It was a long, long time before Roxas called. Roxas counted. Three months and three days later, Roxas was cornered in the alley behind Burger King, face pressed against a wall while three, maybe four, guys took turns kicking him in the ribs. It felt like one of them was wearing rollerblades.

"Fucking queer." The breath smelled like fries in his ear, hateful and thick sounding, greasy and salted. He knew this would happen. How could it not? Knew the second he tried out that he'd be face down somewhere by the end of the day. "Keep your faggot hands to your faggot self, got it, queerboy?"

"I'm a good halfback," Roxas promised, lips squashed, fished out as his cheek dug into the coarse brick. "I'm quick. I won't bother anyone. I just want to play."

"You just want a cock in your ass." A particularly vicious kick made him double over, arms going to clutch his side. This, apparently, was a mistake. "Hold still, you fucking faggot." His right arm was pulled back, hyperextended in one quick, painful crack. Roxas gave more of a shocked gasp than a cry of pain, arm falling useless at his side. His forearm was at a strange angle, the pain so intense that it was like a white, blinding light tearing up his entire body. He was on his knees, alone, for a long time, his cries unacknowledged until a Burger King employee came to throw out some trash.

One hospital stay later, arm secure in a cast, and Roxas sat staring at his phone. The cops had been particularly pushy—"We can't help you if you don't tell us who did this. Tell us who did this. Tell us. Tell us who did this."—but Roxas was unwilling to make junior year even more unbearable than it had already been. How he lived every day knowing that he could be with, really _be with_Axel Spence, he didn't know. Three months, four days, and he had that new film coming out, the one about New York. There was definitely no point now, he figured. Axel was an actor, was a_famous_ actor. He just wanted to fuck him, had already fucked him, and wanted to keep him around to fuck him more. That made the most sense. When he talked about it, pressed close under covers with Naminé, she'd nodded. Yes, that made the most sense.

So why, _why_ did he still feel like calling? Staring hard at the cast on his arm, Roxas hit the call button on his phone. Axel picked up on the third ring.

"Yeah," Axel said, bored sounding, like he'd already been in the middle of a conversation with him. Roxas opened his mouth to speak, but found he didn't know a single English word. "Yeah," Axel said again, "what's up?"

"I-I," Roxas stammered, suddenly feeling five different kinds of stupid.

"Is this Devon with the gram?"

"Uh," Roxas tried. This was a disaster.

"Oh," Axel said all of a sudden, as if something had dawned on him. "Could you—just give me one second." There was a flutter of noise on the other end of the line, Roxas smiling so wide his cheeks felt like they would puncture and deflate. "Ok, hello? Is this… did you get my number a couple weeks ago?"

Weeks, Roxas mused. A couple weeks. "Yeah, sounds about right."

"Hey, listen. You're in the valley? I'll be in the valley in ten. Let me meet you for coffee. Burbank, right?"

"I, uh." He what? Was an idiot high schooler? Was a queer cocksucking faggot who just got his arm broken for trying to join a soccer team? Had a picture of Axel in his topmost nightstand drawer that he used to make out with every single night when he was thirteen?

"I didn't think I was going to hear from you again," Axel said, and there was traffic in the background, Axel's voice excited, breathless.

"Where?" Roxas asked, his heart pounding already, half-memories of skin slapping against skin, trying desperately not to gag on…

"There's this place on Olive, right next to the pizza joint." Axel breathed on the other end. "Please say you'll meet me. I… don't know your name, but I…" There was only traffic on the other end, a switch to the radio station.

"Okay," Roxas said flapping his cast around. That would go over well.

It took him twenty minutes of promising his mother that he was just getting some coffee, that he'd be back early, of course, yes, God, was he four or something, before he was pulling up in the parking lot of the coffee place. He'd never been in, worried about the pretentious looking people staring out at him every time he'd walked past on his way to Starbucks, but it was _Axel Spence_and this was like a date, wasn't it? Almost a date, anyway. In his giddy haste, he nearly shut his cast in the car door.

"Whoa, kiddo, watch yourself." Axel's hand was in the door before it shut, his voice coming over Roxas' shoulder in a wave of dizzying coffee scented breath. Roxas was very careful not to think about anything at all. He hadn't changed into his fake celebrity clothes, hadn't spent 45 minutes elegantly disheveling his hair. His cast, signed by Nami—a smiley sun and a rainbow—and Riku, and his school clothes from the day previous. On good days he looked fifteen; today he was lucky if he hit twelve. Axel would know now. He'd have to know. "Got roughed up, huh?" Roxas shrugged. "You're probably not eighteen, are you." Roxas swallowed thickly. This was it, then. This was when Axel started shouting, or shoved him, or swore at him. Taking out a pack of cigarettes, Axel lit two and handed one over to Roxas. "Well. We'll just have to keep it on the downlow, then, huh?"

"I'm _so_ s—"

"Hey," Axel said, hands at his waist. "I just… I just want to know you. I don't care if you're not… y'know."

"Famous."

"Or, y'know, whoever. I don't care who you're _not_. I care who you _are_."

One too-sweet ice blended vanilla latté later, Roxas was straddling Axel in the backseat of the redhead's Benz, broken arm propped on the backseat. Somewhere between the first sip of the latté and the second, Roxas decided that he needed to have sex with Axel again, something Axel had decided as soon as he saw Roxas get out of his shitty Honda. It wasn't perfect, no, his arm throbbing every time Axel thrust into him, too hot in the backseat, tinted windows their only excuse for fucking in a parking lot in broad daylight, but the element of unreality was lost. There was no coke, no glittering empty city below them. They were just two kids fucking in the backseat. Roxas from Burbank and Axel from Chicago, just two kids


	25. Day 25: The Piercing Parlor

The first time Roxas walked in to the piercing parlor, he was fifteen. Tossing his skateboard in the corner, leaving a healthy scratch down the turquoise walls, he shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered up to the counter. Axel, amused, watched the kid study the various pieces of jewelry in the glass display case. The kid was blonde in that normal, corn-fed blonde way that Axel associated with Oklahoma and a whole lotta nothing. Farms. Cows. Blondes.

"I was thinking about piercing my—"

"Parental consent required for all minors," Axel interrupted, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the sign, bold and in all caps. Roxas glared at Axel, seething in a way highly typical of fifteen year olds, before he turned, hoisted up his board, and disappeared out the door. That would've been it, another self-righteous wannabe kicked to the curb that Axel would've forgotten in twenty-five minutes when that sexy brunette, all legs, walked in... had Roxas not shown up the very next day at the same time. 3:45p.m., enough time to skate to the shopping district from the high school a couple miles away. If South High were just one more mile away, maybe Roxas would've gone to some other piercing joint. Maybe they would've never met at all.

"My mom said yes!" Roxas said, jubilant and smirking all over his blonde, corn-fed face.

"Got a note?" Axel asked, sucking up a bit of chow mein off his chopsticks. The cute hostess at the Magic Wok two shops down definitely had a bit of a crush on him, discounting his food all the time, throwing in a couple extra almond cookies that Axel didn't like, anyway. Before he knew what was going on, the skater kid was unwrapping an almond cookie and devouring it.

"You said I need parental consent. My parental has consented. You didn't say I needed a paper." Roxas reached for another cookie in the bag, eyes locked on Axel's like he wasn't going to see the kid sneak a hand into the takeout bag.

"I don't know if you're lying," Axel said, eyes darting down to watching Roxas take two more cookies. "What if I was going to eat those?"

Roxas smiled around a mouthful, crumbs at the sides of his mouth that faintly repulsed Axel. "My bad." He was at the door, skateboard in hand and about to shove headphones over his ears when he paused, frowning at Axel.

"You're a minor, aren't you?"

Axel, seventeen, grinned. "I work here. Nice try, sweetheart." Roxas pulled a face and skated away, and while this time it would've been harder for Axel to forget the punkass blonde skater who ate the cookies, he still didn't have a name, and the chick with big tits who wanted her nipples pierced, that would've been a nice distraction. After work, laying on his makeshift bed in the tiny closet of a room he was renting in someone's shitty guest house, he thought of the crumbs at the corners of the kid's mouth and thought that maybe they weren't _that_ repulsing.

When the blonde didn't show up at 3:45p.m. the next day, Axel's chest went all funny for a couple seconds before he took a breath, shrugged, then went back to his issue of Maxim. Five minutes later the door opened, the same familiar clatter of a skateboard against the wall. This time, the kid had brought his mom, a nervous looking lady clutching her bag, embarrassed at her evident lack of cool. The kid, though, didn't appear to be embarrassed at all.

"This," he said proudly, "is my mom. She consents to me getting my ear pierced. Right mom?"

The kid had spunk, that was for sure. Axel ordered him up the stairs, sat him down in the chair, swabbed, steadied, and pierced that virgin flesh mercilessly. Roxas didn't so much as flinch. In fact, he didn't flinch through any of the other consequent piercings he got over the years: left nostril (taken out after a month), a couple more ear piercings, his tongue (infected _twice_, and Axel _told_ him to gargle, goddammit, and _stop touching it_, for fuck's sake), and, on one memorable occasion, his nape for all of twenty minutes—enough time for him to walk downstairs, show off in front of his friends, and come back in for the removal.

He'd skate in front of the parlor until the cops told him to clear off, or he'd come in and sit on the display cases while Axel looked at porn or talked shit or ate food, Roxas devouring those gross almond cookies until Axel took to buying him a portion of mongolian beef, at which point Roxas finally (three piercings and one infection in) told him his name.

"Well, _Roxas_," Axel had said, smiling at the blonde on the counter. "You're dropping mongolian beef sauce all over the display case. And I'm Axel."

"...Not like I haven't know since, like, the very first time I came in." Roxas pointed at his name tag, an elaborate plastic-encased thing covered in sparkly, girly stickers, one of them declaring, "YOU BEAST!" in energetic purple font.

Axel never saw him outside the parlor, didn't know where he lived, didn't know what his grades were like or why he hung out at a piercing parlor once or twice a week for three years. Every time Roxas wanted a new piercing, he came in with a signed, notarized letter from his mother—"Official and shit!—and even if he rarely kept the piercings in, even if Axel wanted to tell him he looked better without his skin riddled full of holes, Roxas never stopped coming back. It's not like he didn't think about asking the kid out, didn't think about inviting him back to his small, sometimes depressing room at the back of that tiny guest house. Not like he didn't think of sitting in the vintage, clawed-foot tub with the kid in his lap while they smoked cigarettes and watched shitty movies that he couldn't help but love. It's not like he didn't crush hard on the kid, but he never quite managed to get the words out. Three years, and sometimes he wondered if he'd be in love with Roxas if he could just get to fucking know him first.

3:45p.m. and there was the familiar clatter against the wall, a little sign hanging above the permanent dark gouges in the wall proclaiming Roxas' Parking Spot. Axel had already brought out another stool, a takeout carton of mongolian beef sitting with chopsticks on top. Axel had a porn mag in his hand, some chick with a leaky gash straddling a motorcycle, but he couldn't focus on it at all, eyes darting up at every person walking by the door.

"I," Roxas announced, slamming down onto his stool and shoveling the food into into his mouth all less than one minute after walking into the place, "have been thinking about my anti-eyebrow."

"Yeah?" Axel asked, all relaxed and cool like he was forever doing around Roxas. He couldn't pinpoint when it was, maybe after the tongue, before the first infection, but Roxas started making him nervous; a panicked, trapped butterfly feeling in his stomach that hadn't ever happened before. So that was nervous, right? Butterfly nervous. "Paper, and let's see what it looks like." Axel held his hand out, waiting for the signed, notarized letter from Roxas' mother, but the blonde just smiled and smiled, chopsticks shoveling food unconcernedly.

Axel swallowed. "No."

"L-E-G-A-L," Roxas said, wiping his mouth with a napkin (a learned habit that Axel enforced after the third ear piercing, tired of spots of sauce and crumbs all over the kid's face). "Time to lock up your sons," Roxas said, a weird light in his eyes that made Axel's stomach dip and pinwheel around.

Roxas followed him up the stairs and into the room, hopping into the chair. Axel felt faintly nauseous. "So. Legal, huh?" Roxas nodded, hands clasped in his lap. "Got any plans?" Axel rolled over, pen in hand to mark out his canvas.

"Just one," Roxas said, looking into Axel's eyes as the redhead held his face steady, eyes picking out proper placement. For a moment, Axel wasn't aware of anything different, but there was a slight pressure at the side of his head, and it felt like Roxas was staring holes into him.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked, confused. His hand cupped Roxas' chin of it's own accord.

"A little," Roxas said, looking closely into Axel's eyes, and... _oh_. How had Axel never noticed _that_ before? "I just figure that you don't like me. Not everyone in the world is going to like every person they see. But for some reason my body doesn't get it. It just keeps liking you."

"Oh?" Axel asked, smiling now because _oh my god_. "Which parts of your body?"

"The brain part," Roxas said, expression softening. Axel had thought he was a stubborn, righteous punkass before, but these days he was more than the part, street cred and ethics as etched onto his skin as the color of his eyes, the set of his shoulders. It was strange to see Roxas quieter, vulnerable. "The hands part, and sometimes the dick part, I'm not gunna lie." Roxas bit his lip, looked away briefly. "Or maybe not sometimes. Maybe all the time." The blonde took a deep breath, and Axel was close enough to hear him swallow. "And the heart part. The heart part likes you a lot."


	26. Day 26: The Cat and the Yakuza

**A/N:** An ode to _Tekkonkinkreet_.

* * *

Like the charred aftermath of child's birthday party gone horribly wrong, Kiddie Castle sat on a perpetual slope, a cataclysmic slump pulling at one side, disintegrating every once in awhile, bolts and screws dropping on a plate of rice or on a sleeping body, marring the skyline of Treasure Town. It had been years since the fire, the last sighting of the Minotaur dragging along a dark, rag of a boy over rooftops, and the yakuza left it alone. Where else for the forgotten, starved youth to go than a disenchanted land of delights? Kiddie Castle, ground zero, became their Mecca. Lost boys and girls the world over, hitchhiking and swindling their way to the Castle for just a glimpse of fallen glamour, the ruins of so much potential. Those were the glory days, before the drugs fell in, before the candy colored pastels gave way to dirt and grime, a regurgitated mass of barely distinguishable color. The entrances and exits were boarded up, blockaded. This was how Roxas found his new home.

The Cats, runaways and orphans, were leaderless, aimless and disorganized. Roxas had heard of them, everyone had heard of the Cats, but he did his own thing. Took what he needed, marked out his land, and filled the hours fighting off randoms and taking in the sights. He didn't have a sob story, wasn't all beat up over a family murdered by yakuza or broken ribs from an abusive father. He just left one day, bored, and went to see what the world was like. It wasn't out of the ordinary, his decision, just displaced—instead of leaving home at eighteen, he left a week after his thirteenth birthday. It was a long, hungry road to Treasure Town, full of things no one should ever see. A swollen, bleeding prostitute with smack starved eyes, chapped lips asking for a couple bucks in return for the best blowjob he'd ever get, and he was expected to shrug it off? How do you shrug off the horror, the uncertainty of stealing out of dumpsters, fighting with dogs for scraps of meat? But it was the life he chose. Even after it broke him a little, slowly unwound his screws and tossed them out over a wide expanse, there never came a point where Roxas had enough, where he turned tail and called home. Screws lost, Roxas just _forgot_.

It had been a difficult summer, a couple of kids trying to drive him from the broken dragon coaster that doubled as his hovel, his home, with knives and chains and big boy talk. But Roxas, screws lost, wasn't someone you fucked with. It was a makeshift, contorted katana spiked at both ends with twisted scraps of roller coaster metal, and Roxas knew how to make people scream. Every new victim anointed the blade; delicate, rust-colored rings of red around the edges, drawn there by Roxas with a heaving chest and a twisted, starved grin. He just did what he needed to do. Could he be blamed for having fun while he did it? Eyes on the clear, cloudless sky, Roxas thought of unraveling the large intestine, leaving a trail of it all over the Castle grounds. It was a good idea, good for marking his territory. It was _his_ place; he _owned_ it now.

Which is why, when the word on the streets was that the yakuza were back and interested in the hallowed Kiddie Castle, Roxas wasn't pleased. Agitated at all hours of the night, howling savagely at any sound while he kept watch, sleeping little and only during the day—they wouldn't take it from him. He could share; hell, he shared with a straggly bunch of non-confrontational street kids. They were allowed free passage as long as they kept off of his land, marked off by dark, congealed "13"s. Anything west of the tower was _his_, and _no_ he wasn't hungry, and _no_ he didn't want to "play." The yakuza could fuck themselves if they thought they would turn Roxas out. And anyway, he'd been looking forward to a good, hard fight.

When the yakuza finally showed, Roxas almost died of laughter. He rolled out of the mouth of dragon on the floor, screaming with mirth.

"One? They sent _one_?"

The yakuza, bright burst of red hair, ridiculous clown tattoos under his eyes, smoked his cigarette disinterestedly. "You're the Thirteen? _You_?"

The laughter died in Roxas' throat, and he rose slowly to his feet. "Say it again, just a little more disbelief, and I'll gladly show you."

Axel laughed, held his hands up peaceably. "Relax, blondie. I'm here to cut a deal."

"I don't cut deals with yakuza scum," Roxas spat, pulling out his katana and holding it to catch the light, sun reflecting off and hitting the yakuza in the face.

"Lucky for you I'm just regular, run-of-the-mill yakuza, then." The redhead pulled out another cigarette, offered one to Roxas that the blonde snarled at before shrugging and leaning up against a dilapidated cotton candy stand. "Notice how I haven't pulled a gun on you yet?" Roxas bristled, raised his weapon. "Whoa, whoa, relax. And I'm not _going to_. I'm the deal guy. I make deals." It was a total and complete lie. Axel was calculating the probability of him reaching down to re-tie his shoe unsuspiciously, pull the Beretta from his ankle holster, and shoot the smart-mouthed street rat before the kid hacked him to pieces with his spiky toy. Odds were definitely in his favor. "The boss is willing to pay you to evacuate the premises. He's got big, big plans for Kiddie Castle, and all of them involve us not having to bulldoze over your sweet little face."

"I'm not sweet," Roxas said, frowning. "The blood of my enemies stain this blade."

"What are you, twelve?" Roxas snarled, leapt at Axel with his katana swinging. Axel easily stepped aside, ducked, and ripped the 9mm from his ankle. Crouched with the gun angled up, centered right between Roxas' eyes, Axel smirked. "You fight like a twelve year old."

"SO SHOOT ME, THEN," Roxas screamed, tossing his bizarre katana aside. "FUCKING SHOOT ME." His chest heaving, eyes bright with summer sun, and Axel could only think that the sight was glorious, a little Brat Prince beaten at his own game. So he took the kid to get some ramen.

"You could be trying to poison me," Roxas said over his second bowl, slurping happily at the soupy depths.

"What a way to go, huh? Poisoned ramen. That's one for the books." He'd had to march the kid at first, holding his wrists behind his back and pushing, but eventually, after an overpriced skewer of bocchan dango, Roxas went willingly. "So how about it, Mr. Thirteen? One way ticket anywhere you want to go, all expenses paid." Why Axel was lying to the kid, he didn't know. His order were to exterminate the street rat, hold him down under a pool of sewage until he stopped fighting back, but he hadn't expected _this_. A kid no more than sixteen, sharp, European features. Half-blooded, maybe, and where was his family? Maybe he didn't have a real family, but strays always ran in groups, made their paste and glue families. How did this little kid, the enigma, have no one?

"But I live in the dragon. It's been home for three years." Mouth set in a firm line, Roxas shrugged. "You can shoot me out back, because I'm not leaving." Roxas sat the empty bowl down, stared into Axel's face.

He could put a bullet between the kid's eyes right there in the ramen shop, and no one would call it in. He was yakuza, untouchable. Rose through the ranks quickly, efficiently. Like the kid, Axel had no one. Attachment led to suffering, so if he had no one to tie him down or hold him back, he was free to rise. Like aluminum and helium, stars, dawn, Axel was soon at the top, trading in fading, worn suits, for something Italian he couldn't pronounce. So why was he skirting his orders? Kill the stray. Kill him. But the little Brat Prince demanding death, it was on the backs of his eyelids, a familiar haunt. Axel had left that life behind a long, long time ago. A reformed street kid turned dirty narc before he cut ties with the force and joined the yakuza. They paid better, anyway, and at least they didn't lie about doing the drugs. Whoever had the straighter face, that's who Axel shadowed. In the end it was about lesser evils and having security. He was yakuza, untouchable.

"How about you stay with me, then?" It was an insane, half-daydreamed proposition. He was yakuza, untouchable… so why did the Brat Prince with a number for a name strike that exact, devastating chord in his chest? Roxas laughed and laughed, pulled Axel's ramen toward himself and slurped at that, too, before flagging down the merchant and asking for some mochi.

"You want to be my papa?" Roxas stabbed the mochi down on his fingers, wriggling them at Axel. "You want me to be daddy's little boy?"

"Don't be obscene. I could use—" what, a pain in the ass? A surrogate brother? Son?—"an apprentice. I'm at the top now, and it's all corruption and groveling and who you can step on to get even higher. I need someone to watch my back. Look at me, Thirteen. I'm twenty-one. I got here in five years. You're, what, sixteen?" Roxas nodded, sucking a mochi off his ring finger. "You'll be the same. Five years, at the top."

"My name is Roxas." A cough, another bite of mochi. "You're yakuza," Roxas said contemplatively. "Worse than dirt. I _hate_ you and your suit and your guns. Why should I?"

Axel thought about it, taking a mochi off of Roxas' proffered pinky. The obvious response was that he shouldn't. He should go home, beg forgiveness from his parents. He should go straight, get a job as a courier or a server at a tea house. He should save himself. Except, looking at Roxas—dirty cheeks and feral, livid eyes—he saw that it was already too late. The boy was broken now, a door swinging slightly off its hinges. A liability. He should shoot him.

"I like you," Axel said instead of pulling out the Beretta. Everyone thought Thirteen was a man, some ferocious boy with no law and no soul, not a starving sixteen year old with a darling, cherub face. No one would know. They'd think he took a lover, some underage street whore who kept him warm at night, something to combat the screams of the dying. It would be frowned at, but no one would care. "I want to work for you." An inversion of what he wanted to say, that he wanted Roxas to work for him, but he knew that the kid worked for no man.

Roxas said nothing, merely stood up and walked to the door. Axel dropped his face into hands, sighed. This meant he'd have to chase the kid down, put a couple bullets in his back. But then there was an impatient cough at the door, so Axel tossed money on the table and followed Roxas back to the Castle, into the mouth of the dragon where Roxas lit a handful of candles and sat close, asked Axel about his life, his childhood. They talked for a long, long time, the safety off on the gun in Axel's hand. Against his better judgment, Axel was nodding off, head pillowed on a musty oversized stuffed panda missing its head. He was yakuza, untouchable, and sleeping in the lair of the enemy. Roxas blew out all but one candle and crept close, resting his chin on Axel's chest.

"_Kitsune_," Roxas whispered, petting the spires of Axel's hair. Axel smiled, settled the boy against him, and closed his eyes, drifting off to the soft stroking at his face, fingers tangling in his hair.

When Axel woke up, he half expected to have a gun pointed at his face, his hand empty and his entire body sore from sleeping on the ground. Light was streaming in through the open mouth of the dragon, and as Axel's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Roxas quietly moving over the sides of the walls. Packing.


End file.
